Operation Icarus
by Random1377
Summary: Crossover fiction. Full Metal Panic and Gunslinger Girl. T for violence and action. Complete
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer – the rights to the anime series depicted in this story belong to the original creators/copyright holders. This is a not-for-profit tale, and will be taken offline immediately if the franchise owners wish it.

Operation Icarus

By Random1377

Part 1 – Going in with a Bang

Sousuke Sagara had seen many military operations go bad. From a minor flub of a rehearsed line, to the compromising of an entire team of SAS specialists—every goof-up under the sun—he knew quite well that it didn't take much to have months of planning go up in smoke. Glancing at his watch, he hoped that this was not one of those times, but he was starting to wonder where his fire support, Kurz Weber, had gotten off to.

He was standing in the courtyard of a huge museum in Milan, Italy, rubbing shoulders with people from all over the world and watching out for a rather slippery bomb manufacturer that his organization, Mithril, had sent his team to apprehend. So far, he had not seen anyone that looked overly suspicious, but that was no reason to drop his guard, he decided, nor was it a reason for Kurz to be late.

"Urzu 7, anything yet?" a voice crackled in his ear.

"Unsure," he replied, moving his lips as little as possible to avoid undue attention. "So far the closest people to the statue indicated in the report are an old man with a cane, a pair of women in red hats, a man in a suit, and a young girl with a violin case. Do you see them?"

The other member of his team, Melissa Mao, snorted through the communications link. "No, I'm on the other side of the museum," she explained. "I'm having trouble with the IR in my armslave—calibration's all screwed up! I can tell there are people there, but it won't isolate how many!"

"Understood," Sousuke murmured. "I'm moving in for a closer look. It's almost noon."

Melissa sounded amused as she replied, "You think it's the old guy with the cane, or the little girl?"

Sousuke frowned, but did not reply. In his experience, no one could be ruled out as a suspect unless he knew them personally—and even then, there were exceptions. The hijacking of the Tuatha de Danaan the month before was proof enough of that. He was not ready to say that there was no one he would turn his back on, but the list had dropped significantly since facing two traitors in his own ranks.

As he began to casually stroll towards the statue, Melissa spoke again. "There are other organizations watching this one, Sousuke," she reminded him, her voice losing its joking quality. "Don't jump the gun this time."

Since he was a professional, Sousuke simply replied, "Yes ma'am," rather than taking offense.

It was not, after all, as if he had never jumped to the wrong conclusion, or tackled someone he thought was a terrorist… or a stranger on the street… or a teacher.

No, Sousuke decided, Melissa's warning was not in any way inappropriate.

"The women are moving away," he reported, coming to a stop in front of a rather gaudy painting of the crucifixion. "I don't think they got close enough to place anything on the statue. The old man," he paused, taking another quick look before turning his eyes back to the painting, "the old man appears to be blind."

"And the little girl?" Melissa prompted innocently.

Sousuke continued to make his way towards the statue. "Eating lunch with her companion," he whispered, lowering his voice still lower as he breathed, "he's spotted me."

For a moment, Sousuke's eyes met those of the man in the business suit… and Sousuke's hand twitched a bit, longing for the comfort of his gun. _Soldier,_ he thought immediately, forcing himself not to look away from the man's steely gaze too quickly. _Or at the very least, policeman, but definitely on duty—this is no casual museum trip._

"Afternoon," the man called, his tone friendly and light. "Enjoying the art?"

"Yes," Sousuke answered, "it's… very stimulating."

"You're blown," Melissa's voice hissed in his ear. "This guy's an agent—I can freakin' hear it from here!"

Having no way to reply to her, Sousuke ignored her commentary. "Are you from here?" he asked smoothly. "I haven't met many Japanese speakers since I got here last night. Maybe you could show me around."

The man looked Sousuke up and down, arching an eyebrow at the young man's outfit. "Don't you have a tour guide or something?" he wondered casually. "You're with a school group, right? I mean, I'd be more than happy to show you the sights… but I wouldn't want your teacher to worry."

"I'm here on my own today," Sousuke replied smoothly, "so it's not a problem."

Sousuke was so focused on the man that he almost missed the fact that the girl was staring at him with a bright, sunny smile. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, surprised to find that she was older than he had first thought. At a guess, he placed her at ten or maybe eleven years old, though her eyes were almost as hard as those of the man in the suit, reflecting none of the cheeriness of her otherwise infectious grin.

Things were definitely not what they seemed.

"Well then maybe we should sta-"

"Jose!"

_The old man,_ Sousuke thought, feeling oddly detached as the girl abruptly threw herself in front of the man in the business suit. _I shouldn't have forgotten the old man…_

He tensed, instinctively shielding his face as a dull 'whump' sounded behind him—and then he was flying, hurled into the air by the force of the blast he had failed to stop. Hot wind tore at his clothes, and chunks of debris (the remains of the statue) rained down on his back, peppering him with searing needles of pain while the people all around began to scream.

"S-status," he coughed, fumbling for his earpiece as he forced himself onto his hands and knees. "Kurz? Mao?"

Sousuke's fingers found only flesh as he tried to find his communications device—flesh and a hot, flowing gash just under his right temple. He cast around for his communicator, blinking dust from his eyes and managing to get halfway to his feet before something hard and compact hit him from the side, flinging him back to the ground.

"You," a chill, dispassionate voice whispered, "you did this."

Looking up, Sousuke met the emotionless eye of an automatic handgun, the barrel trembling slightly as the girl glared down at him, the rage in her eyes betraying the calmness of her tone.

Her smile was long gone.

Choosing his words very carefully, Sousuke said, "I'm afraid you've misunderstood, I was only-"

The girl suddenly tensed, and Sousuke's jaw fell open as she leaned backward, holding herself at an impossible angle as a bullet whirred through the space she had just vacated.

_Kurz!_

Sousuke tried once more to get to his feet, but the girl was on him in a flash, stepping around him and slipping her arm around his throat "Call off your sniper," the girl demanded, using Sousuke as a human shield and staring intently up at where Kurz was undoubtedly cursing her existence.

"C-can't," he croaked, wincing as the girl's elbow tightened around his neck. "I can't!"

"Why?"

"You're kneeling on my walkie-talkie."

The girl looked down, and Sousuke made his move… or he tried to, anyway. With the minor distraction, he swung his head back, mentally apologizing as he slammed his head into the girl's forehead—and immediately cried out in pain, wondering dizzily if he had cracked his skull.

"Uhh," the girl grunted, loosening her hold and allowing him to clutch his throbbing head. "Don't do that ag-"

Another shot rang out, and Sousuke felt and heard the slug hammer into the girl's left shoulder… but amazingly, she still did not fall.

"Jose," the girl whispered tremulously, slowly tightening her hold and shifting her entire body behind Sousuke's. "You killed Jose."

Sousuke struggled weakly, trying to pull her arm away from his throat, but it was no good—she was far stronger than he was, and she had leverage and positioning on her side. He could feel the vertebrae in his neck starting to grind together, threatening to give out any second and send him spiraling into death. For a moment, he considered begging for his life, all of his unfinished tasks flashing through his mind as his vision started to grow dim… but he knew he would be wasting valuable breath.

"Henrietta… let him go."

And in an instant, the pressure on his throat was gone. He sagged forward, choking and coughing as his burning lungs drew in huge gulps of life-giving air.

"Jose!" the girl shouted, springing from Sousuke in one leap and falling to her knees at the man's side. "You're ali-"

"The mark," the man named Jose gasped, holding the bleeding wound in his chest as he gave the girl a hard look. "Go after the mark, Henrietta—take this man and go."

"But-"

"We still have a mission, Henrietta," Jose cut in. "This man," he looked to Sousuke, "this man is on our side. If he was with them, he wouldn't have let himself get caught in the blast—you should have realized that."

Henrietta cast a shameful glance at Sousuke, looking suddenly like the little girl she seemed to be… though Sousuke knew in that instant that he had lost one more certainty in life.

"But you're hurt," she protested. "I have to st-"

"You have to catch the mark," Jose interrupted. "If we lose this guy, we might never get another crack at him." He turned his attention to Sousuke. "My people will be here soon," he said, "but there's no time for us to wait for them, do you agree?" After a nod from Sousuke, Jose concluded, "I don't know who you're with, but I don't much care right now. Take Henrietta. Go get those bastards."

"Understood."

The man named Jose was right. There was no time to wait for backup, and even if he could find Melissa in the noise and confusion, her AS was too big to fit down the narrow streets. This was going to be a foot chase.

And they needed to go.

"We'll take the back exit," he said, pulling his service pistol out of its concealed holster as he started off though the smoke. "I hear sirens. I estimate that we have about two minutes before…"

He trailed off as Henrietta's hand slipped into his. He looked down at her, but her eyes were locked onto Jose's ad she whispered, "I'll be back soon."

Jose nodded. "I know you will. Now GO!"

Henrietta gave Jose one last agonized look, her hesitation painfully clear before she shook her head and ran, hand in hand with Sousuke, towards the exit.

* * *

The pavement made hard, echoing cracks under Henrietta's feet as she and the young man from the museum raced through the back alleys of Milan. Whoever he was, he was in good enough shape to keep up with her, though she did find herself dragging him along on a few occasions.

Largely because his hand was still clasped tightly in her own.

"Where are we going?" the young man asked as they dashed down yet another alleyway.

"Jose told me he saw that man with the cane down by the docks earlier today," Henrietta explained, stopping for a moment as they exited the alley and looking around to get her bearings. "We thought he was blind, but we were still trying to watch him since he was one of the only people close enough to touch the statue."

"I was thinking the same thing," the young man admitted, following as she sprinted off towards the docks. "The old man, the women with the hats, and you and your brother."

Henrietta had to keep herself from correcting him. _Fratello,_ she reminded herself. _It's better if people think we're brother and sister, because that's what the Agency wants us to be…_

She still had to know, "How did you know he's my brother?"

The young man glanced up, and seeing that they were still a half mile from the docks, he decided that there was enough time to explain. "Simple," he said efficiently, "you seemed far more comfortable with him than a simple coworker or fellow agent, and he didn't look old enough to be your father."

Henrietta nodded.

"And I didn't think you were old enough to be his lover, so—watch out!"

The two came skidding to a halt as Henrietta (who had looked over her shoulder at the young man's last comment) nearly ran into a light post.

"Ow…"

"You're hurt," the young man whispered, seeming to remember suddenly that she had taken a shot in the shoulder. "Let me take a lo-"

"We don't have time," Henrietta cut in. "He'll get away—Jose said I can't let him get away."

Surveying the scene for a moment, the gunslinger girl resumed her run, her jaw set in determination as the docks came into view.

"There—he's there!"

The young man at her side squinted as she pointed to a small figure hurriedly boarding a freighter. "How can you tell from this distance?" he wondered.

As far as he could see, it was a young man boarding the boat, not an old one, and there was no sign of a limp in his step at all. Of course, he did not immediately disbelieve the girl either. Considering all of the amazing things he had seen in his career, the ability to pick out detail at a distance was pretty tame.

"Same forehead, same eyes," she murmured, keeping her eyes on the mark as they raced down the narrow Italian streets. "Jose made me memorize the features of everyone close enough to bomb the statue."

The young man mumbled something that sounded like, 'impressive,' but Henrietta did not have the time to listen to him. _We have to stop him before that boat sails away,_ she thought grimly. _Secure the mark… get back home… help Jose… secure the mark… get back home… help Jose…_

"They're weighing anchor," the young man said quickly. "We should jump on—they have guards posted at the ramp, but no one's watching the front."

Henrietta nodded. Of course no one was watching the front… because climbing up an anchor was very close to suicide for anyone but the most skilled solider. She spared the young man at her side a quick glance, wondering what branch of the military he was with, and what he had been doing there in the first place.

_No time,_ she thought, releasing his hand as he sprinted ahead and jumped for the anchor. _No time to think. _As the young man began to climb the heavy chain, Henrietta glanced to the ramp. _Oh no!_

One of the men guarding the ramp was making his way towards the front of the boat. From the expression on his face, it looked like he was not happy about being sent on this errand, but Henrietta guessed—quite accurately—that he had been told to check the anchor, and that if she didn't do something soon, the young man she was with would be killed.

_Don't think, don't think, don't think._

Racing around to the front of the boat, she quickly checked to see if anyone could see her, then ran away from the boat, giving herself a good lead off. Once she was sure she had enough room, the gunslinger girl lowered her head and pushed off hard from the pavement, squeezing every last ounce of potential energy out of her cybernetic implants in a frantic dash towards the ship.

_Don't… think!_

Reaching the end of the pier, she kicked off, tearing a small chunk of wood out of the planks behind her as she flung herself up and over the ship's starboard side. She skidded to a halt on the deck, thankful that there had been nothing for her to collide with as she quickly searched for any witnesses to her superhuman leap. Seeing no one, she grabbed a small coil of rope from the deck and dashed over to the side, lowering it down to the young man trying to climb the anchor's rope.

"Grab on," she hissed urgently, looking around frantically for the man she knew to be coming up from the ramp. "Hurry!"

Though he looked stunned to see her, the young man quickly grabbed the rope, his eyes going wide as Henrietta planted her feet on the deck and yanked with all of her strength, hoisting him up and over the side of the railing.

"In here!"

Quickly, the two ducked under the tarp of a small lifeboat lashed to the side of the freighter, pulling the cover back in place mere seconds before a burly solider in gray fatigues strolled over to look down at the anchor.

The young man grunted as Henrietta lay on his stomach, partly in discomfort but mostly in surprise as he found that the girl pinning him to the lifeboat weighed about twice what she should have. In the semi-dark under the tarp, Henrietta could see his eyes studying her face, and she tried not to squirm under the sudden, intense scrutiny. She could almost hear the wheels in the young man's head turning, asking questions like, 'How did she get up there before me?' and 'What kind of grade school kid can haul someone up the side of a boat without breaking a sweat?'

Instead of voicing these questions, though, the young man glanced down, pursing his lips for a moment before whispering, "Don't make a sound."

Henrietta's eyes widened as he suddenly rolled her onto her side and grabbed her jacket by the collar. In one tug, he pulled it down to her waist, trapping her arms at her sides and rendering her effectively defenseless. She had the strength to tear the jacket apart, of course, but with the guard standing a mere ten feet away, she didn't dare make the attempt.

"Ssss!"

A hiss of pain escaped her lips as the young man touched her shoulder, his fingers gently probing the dime-sized hole made by his sniper friend's bullet. "It feels like it's in there pretty deep," he murmured, keeping his voice low as he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. "I don't think I can pull it out without some tweezers or forceps. Can you move your arm?"

Her eyes wide with amazement at the young man's business-like demeanor, Henrietta nodded, whispering, "Yes… it doesn't hurt much."

"I see," the young man replied. "Well, as long as your functionality isn't impaired, I think we'll be ok. I'll see if I can fix you when we reach our destination."

It took a moment for his words to sink in, and when they did, Henrietta did something she had not done for several months.

She pouted.

"I'm not a robot," she informed him, her voice rising briefly in her indignation. "My name is Henrietta."

The young man glanced briefly at the wound in her shoulder, pointedly staring at the dark streaks of hydraulic fluid mixed in with the blood before whispering, "My apologies, Miss Henrietta… I didn't mean to make you angry." He pulled her jacket back up, taking care not to brush her injury, and gravely offered her his right hand.

"Sergeant Sousuke Sagara."

Lying almost nose-to-nose with the young man in a lifeboat, Henrietta wondered if this was the time and place for protocol. She reasoned, however, that Jose would be upset with her if he found out she was being rude when someone else was trying to be polite, so she took his hand in hers and gave it a grave shake.

"It's nice to meet you," she whispered, blushing faintly as she realized just how close they really were.

If Sousuke shared her discomfort, he made no sign. "It sounds like we're underway," he murmured, closing his eyes and listening to the rhythm of the ships engine resonating up through the hull. "We should wait until dark, and then find another hiding place. Provisions could be a problem if this is a long trip, so we'll need to move around at night, and take only what we need to get by to avoid anyone noticing that… what is it? What's the problem?"

Henrietta was staring at him with something close to awe on her face. "Nothing," she whispered, shaking her head slightly for emphasis. "Just… nothing."

_He talks just like Jose,_ she thought as Sousuke began listing off the potential dangers of their current situation. _Jose… oh, Jose—what do I do?_

"…and if we can get access to the communications room," Sousuke was saying, "then we might be able to send a message to my organization, and-"

"Mister Sousuke?"

"Hmm?"

"We should probably be more quiet."

Sousuke blinked, then reluctantly agreed that Henrietta was probably right. As they lay in relative silence, rocked by the motion of the sea, Henrietta tried to decide what she should do. The entire situation was over her head—way over her head—and now that she had time to think, the young gunslinger was starting to realize how unprepared she was for a mission like this.

Cut off from her handler, wounded, and holding only one magazine of ammo, Henrietta wanted to cry. _Jose would be ashamed of me if he saw me like this,_ she thought sadly. _What should I do? What should I do?_

"Miss Henrietta."

"Yes?"

Henrietta watched at the young man shrugged his school jacket off. "It's getting cold," he informed her. "We should rest for an hour or two until dark and then find more suitable shelter."

She hesitated as he turned onto his side and draped his jacket over one shoulder, holding it up in a clear invitation to join him. "N-no thank you," she whispered, averting her eyes as he stared at her. "I'm… not that cold."

"It's barely sunset," Sousuke informed her, eyeing her closely as a shiver ran through her tiny frame. "It will get much colder than this."

Being a cyborg, her body was more resistant to damage and pain… but in a skirt and a thin blouse, she was still susceptible to the brisk ocean air, and now that the excitement of the chase was over, she was starting to feel the chill. She glanced at the young man, studying his face closely for any sign of malice or duplicity. She wasn't afraid of being molested by him, since she was physically stronger (or at least his equal) but if he decided to attack her in her sleep, she wouldn't be able to protect herself.

And she wasn't ready to die just yet.

As he started to lower his jacket, Henrietta scooted closer, reasoning that it wouldn't do any good to die of exposure when a heat source was readily available. _Besides,_ she thought as Sousuke covered her with his thick, warm jacket, _Jose said I should work with him._

In spite of this thought, Henrietta did not close her eyes… and neither did Sousuke, so rather than resting, the two simply lay chest to chest, staring into each others eyes and sharing their body heat as the ocean rocked their bodies gently from side to side.

* * *

"You saw him alive after the blast? You're sure you saw him alive?"

Kurz fought the urge to rub at his eyes as his captain, Teletha 'Tessa' Testarossa, grilled him for information. "Yes ma'am," he said crisply, "when I saw him, he was between me and the girl marked as 'target 1' in my report."

"Then you lost him in the crowd," the platinum-haired woman murmured, pacing back and forth in front of him with her hands laced behind her back and a dark scowl on her face. "Our best sniper, and you couldn't pick him out of a crowd of less than three hundred— and not only that, you lost track of the girl _and_ her cohort as well. Three possible targets," she waved one hand, "gone, just like that."

"Captain," Melissa interjected. "You're being too harsh. Weber was-"

"And you're speaking out of turn, Sergeant Major," Tessa cut in. "I've read your report, and I'm talking to Sergeant Weber right now. I'll get to you in a minute."

As the captain turned on her heel, Kurz and Melissa exchanged glances. It was no secret that Tessa had a certain soft spot for Sagara, but this was the first time either of them could recall her letting personal feelings affect her judgment and behavior.

"The girl…"

Kurz and Melissa turned their attention to their captain's back. "Yes ma'am?" Kurz prompted when Tessa said noting more. "What about her?"

"You… said you hit her in the shoulder, but she didn't bleed?" Tessa whispered. "Nothing?"

Hesitating for a moment, Kurz said, "At the range I was shooting from, I couldn't see any—but I know I got a solid hit on her, and the next time I saw her, I could barely spot the hole in her jacket. She should have been gushing blood, Captain, and if she was wearing a vest, she still shouldn't have been able to recover that fast."

Tessa continued pacing, unconsciously taking her ponytail in her hand and brushing the end against her lips. "It could be them," she whispered, seemingly unaware that Kurz and Melissa were still in the room. "It _is_ their territory, after all…"

Wisely keeping silent in spite of their burning curiosity, the two soldiers waited patiently as their captain continued to pace and mumble to herself, her features growing more and more agitated until finally she walked to her desk and pressed the button on her phone's intercom system.

"Mister Kalinin," she said briskly, "you have a contact in Section One of the Social Welfare Agency, don't you? Please contact him and find out if any of their agents were in Milan. Also…" she hesitated, "please pull all the information we have on Operation Icarus and bring it to my office once you have the report from the agency. Thank you." Without waiting for a reply, she dialed a different extension, picking up her phone's receiver and saying, "This is the captain… please review all satellite information for Milan at 4:15 yesterday afternoon. I want any possible exit route Sergeant Sagara could have taken." She listened for a moment, her brow drawing down for a moment before she murmured, "Yes, I understand that it's already under way, but please increase the priority on it to number one—I'm sure that when we find Sagara, we'll find our bomber."

Hanging up the phone, she turned back to Kurz and Melissa looking from one to the other before slowly bowing her head.

"I'm sorry," she whispered miserably. "I know it's not your fault—you're his friends… you did everything you could."

Though it was odd, Melissa suddenly wished that Kaname Chidori was there. The Whispered girl was the only person Melissa could think of that fit into the category of 'friend' for Tessa. God knew _she_ wasn't exactly the motherly type.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Kurz yawned. "We'll track him down, and when we do-"

"No," Tessa interrupted, looking more miserable. "I need you to watch over Miss Chidori for me. This was supposed to be a one day mission… we can't leave her unprotected."

Melissa opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again after looking into Tessa's anguished face. "I'm sorry, Captain," she said quietly. "We'll take care of her."

_Because that's what we do,_ she thought as Tessa gave her a pitifully grateful nod. _We protect the ones who can't protect themselves… even if it means sometimes we have to throw one of our own to the wolves._

Wishing they had the kind of relationship that would allow for a hug, Melissa saluted, glancing over her shoulder as she and Kurz left a moment later. "Don't worry," she whispered, "I'm sure he'll be ok. He always finds a way out."

Tessa gave her a weak smile.

"I hope you're right this time."

* * *

Henrietta woke with a start, the smell of sea salt sharp in her nose as she blinked in the near pitch-blackness of night. She could not remember the exact circumstances of falling asleep, but based on the quiet and the darkness, she guessed that it was some time in the middle of the night. Her shoulder throbbed as she tensed the muscles, the natural painkiller of endorphin long since having worn off. The pain was dull and low—a good sign, since it would not hold her back too much—though Henrietta knew that if it was left alone too long, things could suddenly get very bad.

The bullet was still in her, after all.

"Mister Sousuke?" she whispered, trying to pick the young man's face out of the inky surroundings.

She could feel his body, so she knew he was there… and somehow, though she couldn't remember how, they had repositioned themselves during the night, ending up with Sousuke on his back and Henrietta with her head resting on his chest.

The gunslinger girl blushed, embarrassed that she had allowed herself to wind up in such an intimate position. _Sorry Jose,_ she thought guiltily, _I didn't mean it…_

Squinting her eyes, she managed to find Sousuke's face, her heart skipping a beat as she found him gazing down at her.

"Did you rest well?"

"Yes," she replied honestly, "I did. Did you rest, Mister Sousuke?"

The young man shook his head. "No," he murmured, "I've been listening. They have a guard that patrols this area every twenty minutes… this is no ordinary freighter."

Henrietta nodded, then frowned, feeling a certain lightness at the small of her back.

"Mister Sousuke?"

"Hmm?"

"….where's my gun?"

Sousuke did not hesitate to reply, "I have it. You had the safety off." Henrietta felt warm steel pressing into her hand, and as she looked into Sousuke's eyes, she knew instinctively that the idea of killing her in her sleep had never crossed his mind. "I think it's too late for us to distrust each other," he said calmly. "Can we work together, Miss Henrietta?"

It was hard to say no to a question like that, Henrietta decided, when the person asking it was lying halfway underneath you and sharing your body heat. "Yes, Mister Sousuke," she said quietly, "we can."

"Alright," Sousuke said decisively. "Then here's what we should do…"

Henrietta listened carefully as the young man precisely outlined their situation and options, sterilizing her wound with some alcohol he had scrounged up and binding it as he spoke. As he saw it, he explained, they were outnumbered and in the dark on their destination, so they needed to lie low until the boat reached its destination before making any rash moves. Once they had arrived, he reasoned that they could find out what they had gotten involved in (as it was clearly more than a simple bombing), find a way to communicate with one or both of their agencies, and then disrupt whatever operations this organization was in the middle of until their backup arrived.

When he had finished, Henrietta asked, "Is this what they call guerilla warfare, Mister Sousuke?"

"Yes," Sousuke replied. "Are you uncomfortable with that, Miss Henrietta?"

Considering the question for a moment, Henrietta ultimately shook her head. "I've never done it," she admitted. "Most of what I do is against lots of people all at once…but I don't know how much I can do with my shoulder like this." She brightened as it suddenly occurred to her that, "My fried Rico would be good at this, I think."

Sousuke nodded. "Some people have greater aptitude for this kind of work," he said confidently. "Is Rico good at what he does?"

Giggling, Henrietta said, "Rico's a girl."

Further conversation was curtailed as footsteps approached their position. They waited until the footsteps had passed, then pulled the tarp on the lifeboat back, peering carefully out to make sure the coast was clear before slipping out onto the deck. A quick survey of the area showed that they were on a basic tanker-type freighter, which meant that there were potentially a dozen bolt holes for a pair of small bodies to hide in for an extended amount of time.

And considering that they had no idea where they were going, it was good to have multiple hiding places. _Mister Sousuke said as long as we cover our tracks, they'll never know we're here,_ Henrietta thought as she and Sousuke slipped behind a bulkhead. _But we could be here for days._

Closing her eyes, Henrietta slipped her hand into Sousuke's, comforted by its size and strength. He wasn't Jose, of course (no one was, or ever would be), but he was confident and in charge.

And really, that was all Henrietta needed.

* * *

Kurz was pretty sure that Kaname Chidori lived her life being 'a woman scorned' since she always seemed to be on the warpath about something or other. "He's fine," he told her for the hundredth time in their twenty minute conversation. "Would I lie?"

"Yes," Kaname countered, setting her bento down and giving the blonde a hard stare. "In fact, I think you're so used to lying that you don't even know you're doing it anymore!"

"Aww, that's not right!" Kurz complained, looking around the small, sunny park where they were eating. "Give me a break, huh? I said he just got caught up in a mission! Why ya gotta come down on me like that?"

As the young girl rose to her feet, Kurz considered just how alike she and his captain were. _Man, it's like she knows what Tessa knows,_ he thought dismally. _And since when does Sousuke need a babysitter, let alone two! He's got more kills than I do—and that's saying something._

Kaname laced her hands behind her back. "Caught up in a mission, huh?" she whispered, staring up at the sunny October sky. "Aren't you his support, Kurz…? If he got stuck on a mission you were on, shouldn't you be stuck too?"

Clearing his throat, Kurz said, "Well, that's-"

"Kurz."

"Huh?"

"What happened that time Sousuke went on that mission and had to leave for two weeks?"

Kurz fidgeted. "You know I can't tell you that," he mumbled. "I mean, I know you saved us when Gauren had the ship and all, but classified is still classified…"

Saying nothing for a moment, Kaname wrapped her arms around her stomach, shivering in spite of the unseasonably warm weather. "He's been different after that, ya know," she whispered. "I mean, he's always been a little weird, but since then he... doesn't _feel_ quite the same." Before Kurz could reply, Kaname lowered her voice and said, "People died, didn't they—people he was supposed to protect… that's the only thing I could think of to explain the way he's been acting."

For a moment, Kurz considered telling her everything about the mission in Helmajistan—confidentiality be damned! _They're all dead,_ he mused tiredly, resting his forearms on his thighs and tapping his fingertips together as he thought. _Maybe… maybe it would help those people rest if Sousuke got his conscience clear, and Kaname…_

His thought trailed off as Kaname murmured, "It will happen again. If he had the ARX-7 with him, his chances would improve... but Daedalus is not to be taken lightly. Only the Lambda Driver would ensure its destruction."

Kurz looked up, and though Kaname's back was to him, he knew that her expression was completely blank and her eyes were no longer their normal chocolate color. He held his tongue, knowing that it would be useless to talk if she was in the grip of a Whispered trance, though he was dying to know if she could tell him anything about where Sousuke was.

In spite of his assurances that he was sure Sousuke was alright, Kurz was almost as worried as Tessa.

"He doesn't know what he has," Kaname whispered. "A tiger by the tail… genie in a bottle… Pandora's box… shouldn't open it…. shouldn't open it… shouldn't…"

Abruptly, she shook herself, rubbing her upper arms as she turned back to face Kurz.

"Anyway," she said dismissively, "that's the only thing I can think of that would make him… what? Why are you staring at me like that?"

Averting his eyes, Kurz quickly said, "No reason, just… thinking that you're probably right. I'll ask Tessa if I can tell you about it next time I go back."

Completely unaware of her fugue, Kaname gave him a grateful smile. "Thanks Kurz."

"Sure…"

Rising to his feet, Kurz tucked his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky, concentrating on memorizing every word of Kaname's monologue and formulating an excuse to slip away and contact the Tuatha de Danaan as soon as he could. The captain, he thought, had to know about this as soon as possible.

Continued…

Preread courtesy of Stahn Aileron and Alpha Zulu.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer – see part 1

Operation Icarus

By Random1377

Part 2 – Getting there

The journey was an exercise in boredom, tension, and awkwardness. Sousuke and the young girl named Henrietta moved from hiding place to hiding place on the freighter, avoiding the patrolling guards with the ease of professionals outwitting amateurs, which was somewhat of a concern for Sousuke, since the men on the ship seemed to be anything but amateurs.

Nights were spent in whatever secluded area fit the bill when dark fell, and meals were whatever meager rations the two could steal from the larder. Fortunately, the ship was well stocked, and they selected items that were plentiful, ensuring that no one on board would miss them. Sousuke had found a blanket on one of his scouting trips, so they were spared the cold of the evenings, but since the blanket was small and rather threadbare they were still spending every night huddled together to conserve heat.

Conversations… were lacking. Anything the two had to say to each other revolved around plans for escape or contingencies for discovery. Henrietta, it seemed, was unconcerned about being able to kill each and every person on the freighter (Sousuke guessed that he was included in this equation) but she stressed that she had been ordered by her associate to bring the mark in alive. And since Sousuke himself had the exact same order, assassinating everyone onboard was not an option.

It was four days before the boundaries began to soften.

"I want to have a bath."

Sousuke looked up from where he had been going over his 4235th scenario, scratching a bit at the stubble on his chin as he murmured, "A bath, huh…?"

Henrietta plucked listlessly at her skirt. "I feel dirty," she whispered, "and I want something good to eat."

Stretching out his legs, Sousuke nodded, hesitating for a moment before mumbling, "There's… someone at my school that makes lunch for me sometimes."

"Is it good?" Henrietta wanted to know, perking up a bit as she leaned closer to him. "What does she make?"

Sousuke blinked. "Did I say 'she'?"

Henrietta shook her head. "No," she admitted, "but I've never heard of a boy making another boy food."

"Well I don't really have a lot of experience with that kind of thing either," Sousuke mused, "but I know there are people like that out there."

Clearly disinterested in the tangent the conversation was taking, Henrietta pressed, "So what does she make? Cookies? Tea? That kind of thing? My friend Claes makes cake sometimes."

Resting his head against the bulkhead, Sousuke said, "More like stir fried chicken and omelets cut up into squares."

"Really?"

Sousuke looked at her from the corner of his eyes. "Is that unusual?"

Henrietta scooted a bit closer, looking around to make sure she wasn't being too loud as she said, "I've never had that. Where I live, they give us healthy, balanced food, or sweet things."

Frowning, Sousuke stared at her, trying to decide if she was kidding. When it was clear that she was not, he said, "Aren't sweet things bad for you?"

"Well," Henrietta said, considering this for a moment, "the Ag- umm, the dorm where I live gives us a nutritious diet to make sure we're healthy, but our, umm, brothers give us sweet things, and we're allowed to cook things ourselves if we want to—as long as it's not too much."

Politely allowing the lies about dorms and brothers to pass by unchallenged, Sousuke said, "It sounds like they take good care of you."

The girl's eyes went hazy and wistful. "They do," she mused. "Especially Jose…" She blushed as she noticed the expression on his face, and quickly got to her feet, blurting, "Well, we should probably move again, so-"

She stumbled as the boat abruptly lurched to a halt, falling forward into Souske's arms as shouts rose up all over the ship. "It feels like we've run aground," he murmured, helping the girl regain her balance before pushing himself upright. "Have we reached our destination?"

"M-Mister Sousuke…"

Glancing down, Sousuke found Henrietta staring up at him with a look of intense panic on her youthful features.

"I… I can't move my arm."

* * *

Tessa rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, holding the receiver tightly in her other hand as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. "And you're _sure_ that's what Kaname said?" she murmured tiredly. "She definitely said '_Daedalus'_?" Listening for another moment, she nodded to herself. "Thank you for your hard work, Mister Weber… please stay where I can reach you."

"Is it what we feared?"

Glancing up at her second in command, Andrey Kalinin as she hung up the phone, Tessa said, "Yes, I'm afraid so. Someone has reactivated the Icarus project."

Kalinin pursed his lips. "Are we sure? What is our proof?"

"Miss Chidori," Tessa replied flatly. "Kurz was with her when she had a vision… and she specifically said, 'Daedalus is not to be taken lightly.'"

"Indeed it isn't," Kalinin murmured. "Is there any chance that she heard the name somewhere else? When she was on board, perhaps?"

Tessa shook her head. "No, no one here besides the two of us know what, exactly, it is… and only a few even know about the Icarus Project at all." She leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling as she said, "Make sure the Arbalest is fitted into a cruise missile and ready to deploy at any time. When Sergeant Sousuke contacts us, we need to be ready to move."

Though the extra 'IF he contacts us' hung in the air, Kalinin cleared his throat and asked, "Has there been any word on the freighters that left the dock that day?"

Shifting the papers around on her desk, Tessa lifted up a yellow sheet of paper. "Every one of them is accounted for," she whispered, "except one. Can you guess the name of the ship, Mister Kalinin?"

Kalinin admitted that he could not, squinting as he leaned forward to read the paper. "The _Apulia,_" he mused. "And we didn't notice it…"

"We didn't know to look for it," Tessa whispered despondently. "Project Icarus was shut down—and Daedalus was destroyed… or it was supposed to be, anyway."

They stared at the shipping manifest, pondering the meaning of the name. Apulia—the city supposedly built by the Iapyx, Daedalus' other son. Forever earthbound, Iapyx was at least spared the fate of his brother, Icarus, who (given wax and feather wings by his father) flew too close to the sun and fell to his death in the Aegean Sea.

_How appropriate, _Tessa though, _considering what Project Icarus was trying to do…_

"So for now… we wait?" Kalinin prompted quietly, drawing the captain out of her grim thoughts.

Tessa slumped in her seat. "It's all we can do," she said glumly. "No one has seen the _Apulia_ since it set sail that day, and for all we know, it's changed its appearance, or weighed anchor in a cave, or even been scuttled. Until Sergeant Sagara contacts us, all we can do is try to stay ready."

Reluctantly, Kalinin admitted that she was right. Gathering the files on her desk into a neat pile, he shuffled carefully through them, lingering on one clearly marked, 'firing chamber' and fighting a feeling of dread as he realized that for the first time in many months, Mithril was absolutely without direction.

"Has there been any word from the Social Welfare agency?"

Kalinin shook his head. "All my man would admit to was that his agency was aware of the bombing… nothing more."

"Bombing," Tessa murmured, suddenly sitting up in her chair. "Kalinin—get me a list of any works of art that were damaged in the blast!" Grabbing her jacket off the back of the chair, she started for the door, whispering, "I'm so stupid… why didn't I see it before?"

Thankful that his captain had picked up on something that he had missed, Kalinin followed along, listening closely as she outlined her theory to him for the hows and whys of the bombing and its connection to Project Icarus. As they reached the bridge and set a course for Milan, he had to admit that with the benefit of hindsight… they really should have seen it before.

* * *

The freighter was quiet—or rather, it was deathly silent, a fact that seemed to make Sousuke edgy and cautious. Henrietta stole a sideways look at him as they crept, hand in hand, along the outer wall of the cargo hold they had been hiding in. Once they had found that her shoulder was frozen, there had been some quick discussion of what to do next, and in the end they had agreed that it would be worth the risk to sneak out for a look around, just to see what was going on up top.

Holding hands to avoid being separated was Sousuke's idea.

Henrietta was glad he had offered, because she had been on the verge of asking. _It's not because I'm scared,_ she told herself smiling a little sickly as Sousuke glanced her way. _It's just so we don't get separated._

She could not remember the last time she had been away from Jose for more than 24 hours, or even if she _had_ been away from him for that long since starting her new life with the agency. Granted, she was a top of the line cybernetic agent with more kills under her belt than the average police officer or peacetime soldier, but in all of her previous experiences Jose had been there to tell her what to do and where to go.

And besides, she _was_ still just a little girl.

"Do you smell that?" Sousuke murmured, pausing as they reached the stairs up to the deck. "It smells like blood to me."

Henrietta nodded, never once questioning the fact that while both of them were under eighteen, they were familiar enough with the smell of blood to recognize it from a distance. "It's coming from up there," she whispered, nodding towards the door at the top of the stairs. "There's lots of it, Mister Sousuke… lots and lots."

Sousuke nodded. "I know," he said. "And it looks like the door is already open, which means something's wrong. When we go through, you cover the right and I'll cover the left. I don't like the way this looks."

"Got it."

It felt natural to let him take charge. In fact, Henrietta couldn't imagine it any other way. _He's strong,_ she thought as they edged up the stairway. _I'll bet Triela would like him… he reminds me of Hillshire, but he's a little bit like Ferro, too._

"Make sure you stay on my right," Sousuke murmured, releasing her hand and switching his gun to his dominant side. "If we start to get surrounded, put your back against mine."

Reaching the top of the stairs, it was not hard to see where the smell of blood was coming from. Lying sprawled just inside the door was a large, burly looking man in dark camouflage gear. A heavy assault rifle was clutched in his ham-like hands, but from the look of surprise on his face, Henrietta doubted that he had managed to get off so much as a single shot.

Gazing down at the body, Sousuke said, "His throat's been cut—ear to ear… but it looks like an afterthought."

"Yes," Henrietta agreed, "there's a cut in the back of his neck."

They leaned down for a closer look. "Four inch blade," Sousuke whispered. "It went in just under his skull, severing his spinal column. Whoever did it is strong, there's no sign of sawing—the blade went right in."

Henrietta nodded, both impressed by the young man's deductive abilities and a little queasy that he had the answers so readily available. "But why cut his throat?" she wondered softly, looking to Sousuke for an explanation. "He would have been dead before he fell down, and cutting his throat would make it much easier to find the body… so why do it?"

Glancing through the door, Sousuke shook his head. "To send a message?" he murmured. "But why leave the body where no one would see it? This doesn't make sense."

"Mister Sousuke."

"Hmm?"

"There's another body over there…"

Sousuke looked to where Henrietta was pointing with the tip of her gun, finding that there was indeed another body lying on the deck. Even in the dim starlight, he could tell that this corpse had also had its throat cut, and like the first, there was an expression of supreme shock on the body's face—as if the man had been murdered by his own mother or sister.

_They didn't even hide that one,_ Henrietta observed, unconsciously mirroring Sousuke's thoughts. _I guess they don't care if anyone finds the body._

"Miss Henrietta," Sousuke whispered, cocking his pistol with his thumb as they stepped through the door, "stay close to me. I don't like-"

"Why hello!"

Battle-honed reflexes helped both the gunslinger girl and the Mithril agent spin around and fall back at the sound of the voice above their heads, narrowly avoiding two well-placed bullets that otherwise would have gone through the backs of their heads.

Rolling to the left as Sousuke rolled to the right, Henrietta brought her handgun to bear, finding herself aiming at a young man in his early twenties sitting on the roof the cargo hold. In the darkness, it was hard to tell if his hair was black or brown, but from the shape and color of his eyes, he seemed to be Japanese, like Sousuke, though as she watched, his left eye changed from dark brown to a hazy shade of frost.

The transition was so quick that Henrietta might have second-guessed herself… if she hadn't been pulling the trigger at that very moment.

"Whoop," the young man exclaimed, leaning backward at almost the same millisecond Henrietta's bullet left the barrel, allowing the projectile to pass mere inches from his face. "Nice shooting!" he cheered, waving both hands in the air like a sports fan at the super bowl. "Try again, try again!"

From the corner of her eye, Henrietta saw Sousuke rising to his feet, his gun trained on the young man as he called, "Identify yourself."

The young man shrugged, seemingly unconcerned about the two guns pointed at his face, and rose to his feet, offering them an elaborate bow. "Asking me to identify myself when you're stowaways on my ship takes nerve—I love that!" he said as he straightened. "The name I was given was 'Adam,' if you can believe something as cliché as that, but these days I prefer Shiva—it's so much more… intimidating, than Adam don't you think?" Abruptly, he leaned forward, cupping one hand around his mouth as he whispered, "Confidentially, you should have seen what they did to Eve. If _that's_ the biblical route, count me out."

As Henrietta and Sousuke stared, the young man burst into spontaneous laughter, holding his sides as he doubled over on the roof and rolled from side to side.

"Ahhh I like you," he sighed, climbing to his feet and dusting his jeans off with one hand. "You," he pointed to Sousuke, "can be Paramilitary Soldier Guy, and you…" he trailed off as he turned his attention to Henrietta. For a moment, he simply stared at her, and Henrietta had the distinct, unpleasant feeling that he was trying to sniff her, even though he was a good ten feet away. "You can be a Social Welfare Agency type I cyborg."

A jolt of irrational fear ran through Henrietta's body. "Wh-who are you?" she stammered, her gun hand shaking slightly as the man calling himself Shiva twisted his head to the right, causing his neck to let out a series of sharp pops.

Shiva grinned. "The cat," he declared, holding his hand up and revealing a rather long, double-bladed knife. "See my claw? I already showed you my other one, but for this game, I'll just use this."

"Game?" Sousuke echoed. "What game?"

Bouncing on his heels, Shiva said, "Hide n' seek. See, I give you five minutes to run and hide, and then…" his smile fell away, replaced by a cold, inhuman leer. "…then I kill you." And as suddenly as it had vanished, his smile was back, twice as broad as before. "So you see, you better get a move on, or-"

Henrietta flinched as Sousuke suddenly opened fire, sending five slugs towards Shiva's face… though a moment before they hit, the young man's hand seemed to blur out in front of him, and with five small 'tinks,' Sousuke's bullets fell to the ground, deflected almost effortlessly by Shiva's wickedly gleaming knife.

As if nothing had happened, Shiva said, "Five minutes, Soldier Boy. Tick tock."

There was a total of seven seconds of silence… and then Sousuke grabbed Henrietta's hand, and the two bolted for the gangplank, rushing down its length and sprinting into the dark forest that seemed to dominate the island where they had run aground.

_He did it,_ Henrietta thought, shivering as behind them, Shiva began to count in a loud, childish falsetto voice. _He killed all those men… he ran the boat into the island…_ she swallowed as Sousuke led her deeper into the forest. _He's going to kill us…_

* * *

Kurz groaned, trying to bury his face in his pillow as the pounding on his door continued. "Big sister," he called, "big sister—answer the door, can you?"

From the next room, Melissa replied, "Answer it yourself—and don't call me big sister, you know I hate that!"

Grumbling about inconsiderate coworkers, Kurz threw his covers off and swung his legs out of bed. Pushing his feet into a pair of rather fluffy slippers—slippers he would deny owning, should anyone on board the Tuatha de Danaan inquire—he headed for the front door of the apartment, scratching his stomach as he went and noticing that Melissa was already positioned just inside her doorway, leaning back against the wall with a rather large pistol clutched in both hands.

"You think someone's coming to kill us at this hour?" he yawned as he passed. "Usually the bad guys don't knock, ya know."

Melissa rolled her eyes. "There is no 'usual' with 'bad guys,' idiot," she muttered. "Grow up."

Kurz shrugged. "Whatever you say, big sister."

Before Melissa could hit him with something (like a pillow, or her fist) Kurz hurried to the door, peering through the peephole and yawning, "It's just Kaname," before unlocking the bolt and pulling the door open. "Hey Angel. What can I-"

"Type 6 long-range assault helicopter," Kaname whispered, brushing past Kurz before he could even notice that she was only wearing a bra and panties. "ECS equipped… loaded for air-to-ground attack… fueled and ready for liftoff by sunrise." Reaching the center of the apartment's small living room, she glanced around. "Type 6 has the greatest speed," she said, her eyes passing over Melissa as if she did not exist. "Type 5 would be preferable due to its armaments, but it is 3.5 KPH slower… and we can't afford to be slow…"

Recovering first from the sudden, underclothes-only appearance of their charge, Kurz said, "Er, sure thing, Kaname… no problem. Umm… where are we going?"

He motioned for Melissa to grab the first-aid kit sitting by their transmitter, twirling his finger next to his ear and hoping that she got the message.

The lights were on at Kaname's, but there was definitely no one home.

"South Pacific," Kaname replied promptly, rattling of a series of coordinates as Kurz and Melissa's jaws fell open. "Installation R-58—security clearance Omega is required for entrance to the facility, but by now… I'm sure Adam has bypassed the overrides."

Melissa nodded to Kurz, switching her gun to one hand as she hurried over to the communications array and tried to raise headquarters. "Adam who?" Kurz prompted, feeling a growing sense of dread as Kaname turned glossy, unseeing eyes towards him.

"Adam is Adam," she said flatly. "Adam is the product of Daedalus. Adam is death. Adam is the destroyer. Adam is-"

"Ok, I get it," Kurz cut in, worried that the girl might have a hundred more definitions for what Adam was. "So, umm… he's at Installation R-58, huh?"

Kaname simply stared at him, seemingly unwilling to repeat herself.

"Kurz," Melissa said urgently, "Kalinin's on the line—the Danaan is one the move. Do you wanna guess the destination?"

Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Kurz shook his head. "Tessa's orders?"

Melissa nodded. "It seems that about one hour ago, she went all 'Whispered' and started talking about Daedalus," she murmured. "Kalinin was literally picking up the phone to contact us… so he could let us know there's a Type 6 long-range assault helicopter with ECS equipment and an ATG combat payload on its way to pick us up." Her eyes flicked to Kaname. "It'll be here at sunrise…"

Kurz sighed. "Well," he mused pragmatically, "at least we know where Sousuke is."

* * *

The jungle was dark and almost impenetrable, but Sousuke dared not slow from a dead run for fear of feeling a knife plunging into his back. "Left!" Henrietta told him, her sharper eyes spotting the trail they were trying to follow, though where it lead, neither knew or cared.

As long as it led somewhere safe, that was all that mattered.

"How long?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the ground to avoid tripping over a root or other obstruction. "Has it been five minutes yet?"

"Not sure," Sousuke replied. "But in hide and seek, the objective is to avoid being discovered… so maybe he has some kind of time limit for looking for us."

Henrietta's voice was timid as she whispered, "I don't think he follows the rules."

As if in response to this idea, a voice (all too close) roared, "Ready or not, here I come!"

"See?"

Sousuke frowned. _We need a place to hide,_ he thought. _We can't take him in a standup fight, so it'll have to be an ambush—and I need some time to plan that._

"Is that a warehouse?" Henrietta asked suddenly. "Look Mister Sousuke—over there… it _is!_"

Squinting in the darkness, Sousuke barely picked out a squat, hulking shape. "Let's go," he whispered, changing course and heading for the huge building. "Watch out, though. If that was his boat, this is probably his island."

"Ok."

Sousuke stole a glance at the girl, deciding that she was holding up very well for someone with a bullet lodged in her shoulder. _Then again,_ he thought grimly, _that man said she was a cyborg, so who knows if she even feels pain…_

He didn't doubt that Shiva had been right about Henrietta. The pieces fell into place quite nicely, though in all honesty he had no idea of just what it meant, other than the fact that she had higher than average strength and endurance. For all he knew, she might be 99% robot.

_No,_ he told himself, _she bleeds… and she talks in her sleep. Robots don't talk in their sleep—or sleep at all for that matter._

In his mind the debate was closed by one simple fact: she was human enough for him to watch over.

"There's a door," Henrietta said, nodding into the darkness to avoid letting go of his hand. "It looks like it's just wood."

"Stand back," Sousuke warned. "I'll-"

Before he could finish, Henrietta stepped forward and swung her fist down like a hammer, shattering the doorknob (and part of the doorframe) and causing the door to swing inward on its well-oiled hinges.

"What was that, Mister Sousuke?" she asked, looking up at him without so much as a trace of sarcasm.

"…never mind."

Together, they hurried into the building, but rather than a dusty old warehouse, they found themselves in a well-lit, fully-functional concrete bunker complete with sterile white walls and large stacks of neatly organized crates bearing trademark and shipping stamps from all over the world.

"Mister Sousuke…" Henrietta whispered, tightening her hold on his hand as a gust of air hit their noses.

"I know," Sousuke replied grimly. "I smell it…"

The stench of death was heavy in the air—thick, unmistakable, and stomach-clenchingly dank. Sousuke guessed that the workers in the facility had been dead somewhere around 10 days. _Just long enough for a roundtrip journey to Milan,_ he thought, struggling to keep last night's dinner from coming back up on him.

Henrietta tugged on his hand. "Come on," she urged. "We have to hide—he's almost here."

Indeed, Sousuke could hear Shiva crashing through the forest, making no attempt to keep quiet as he joyfully shouted out possible ways to end their lives. They paused as the latest reached their ears, and Henrietta made a face.

"Wouldn't that just give him indigestion?"

"Get behind those crates," Sousuke ordered. "When he gets to the center of the room, we'll catch him in a crossfire. He won't be able to dodge fire from two directions at once."

_I hope,_ he added mentally as they separated and took up their respective positions.

Once he was situated behind a stack of crates, he looked over, nodding in approval as he spotted Henrietta ducking into a gap too small for any grown man. Within seconds, she was completely invisible save for a tiny glint of her pistol—and even that disappeared as the girl wrapped her jacket around the barrel.

_Good,_ Sousuke thought. _Even if he spots me, she'll still be able to take him off guard._

He turned his attention to the door as Shiva flung it open and burst into the room, throwing his arms grandly to the sides as he called, "Come out come out wherever you are!" He strode boldly into the center of the room, his dark eyes never once looking to the side. "Like my place?" he asked jovially. "I'd offer you some cookies or something, but I'm afraid my maid is… well, she's a little under the weather right now, so-"

Sousuke nodded… and he and Henrietta opened fire.

It was a perfect setup, with a perfect execution. Shiva's body jumped as each round found him—three from Sousuke; four from Henrietta—and immediately, blood began welling out of the wounds.

Only, like Henrietta's shoulder wound, there was far less than there should have been.

"Ooo you got me!" Shiva laughed. "Nice one, Soldier Boy!"

Before either he or Henrietta could react, Shiva dove forward and shot his hand into Henrietta's hiding place, hauling her out by the front of her shirt and holding her in the air like a fox flushed out of the rush by a pack of hunting dogs. The gunslinger girl struggled in his grip, trying to thrust her gun into his face only to have him slap it from her hand.

"Miss Henrietta!"

Desperately, Sousuke dropped his gun and lunged forward, bringing both of his fists down on Shiva's arm in an attempt to break his grip, but rather than giving way, Shiva's arm stayed in place… and Sousuke stumbled back, crying out as his fists resonated with pain, hurting far more than if he had been pounding on concrete for an hour or two.

"Oh my," Shiva mused, ignoring Sousuke entirely as he gave Henrietta a once-over. "You're hurt, little sister. Well, never let it be said that I let a family member suffer." So saying, he slammed Henrietta up against the crates and held up two fingers, showing them to the dazed girl for a moment before saying, "Now, this might sting a bit."

Henrietta screamed as the man suddenly jabbed his fingers into her shoulder, rooting around in her wound as if he was doing nothing more than trying to fish a favored marble out of his toybox.

Sousuke shook himself, diving for Henrietta's gun only to have Shiva absently kick it away. "Hmm, now that _is_ in there pretty deep," he mused, lifting his foot a second time and pinning Sousuke's hand to the floor. "Right between… that one bone and… that one other bone—I was never too good at bio, ya know?" He laughed as Henrietta began to sob with pain, completely ignoring Sousuke's frantic attempts to get free. "You know what's funny?" he chuckled, "I can get my fingernail under it, you feel that?" Henrietta's scream was enough of a 'yes' for him. "But I just can't quite get it out. Oh well, maybe later."

He opened his hand, and Henrietta fell to the floor, clutching her shoulder as Sousuke pulled her protectively into his arms.

"Well this is boring," Shiva said, lacing his hands behind his neck and looking dispassionately down at the two. "Hmm, I was going to save little sister here for Daedalus, but with that shoulder, it would probably just kill her—and hell, I can do that myself, so where's the fun in that?" Sighing, he crouched down, gazing into Sousuke's eyes as he absently picked at one of his wounds. "You're nice and healthy, though," he mused. "Yeah, I guess you'll have to do."

Reaching down, he grabbed Sousuke and Henrietta and cracked their heads neatly together. Being a cyborg, Henrietta barely took note of the pain… but Sousuke was immediately knocked out, having not so much as a second to gasp in surprise before the lights went out and he was plunged into darkness.

Continued…

Preread courtesy of Stahn Aileron and Alpha Zulu.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer – see part 1

Operation Icarus

By Random1377

Part 3 – God Machine

The next few days passed in exactly the opposite fashion as the ones spent onboard the freighter. Henrietta found herself handcuffed to an uncomfortable steel chair, with nothing to look at but a blank wall. The first day (or what she guessed was the first day, since they were in a fluorescently lit building with no windows) she had talked to Sousuke, who was cuffed to a chair behind her… but Shiva, who was in the next room working on some mysterious 'project,' came in and roughly gagged them after a while, cheerfully telling them that he worked best in silence and that if they really wanted to talk he could bring his old crew back.

After he had opened a broom closet and showed them the liquefying remains of his old crew, Henrietta wouldn't have talked even if she hadn't been gagged.

It was a strange, timeless captivity. Shiva fed them when he found it convenient, which was sometimes when Henrietta's stomach felt like it was going to collapse in on itself, and sometimes when he had fed them mere minutes before. The food was as disparate as the feeding times, ranging from instant ramen to what looked like steak, and while Henrietta not entirely sure that what they were being fed _was_ steak, one look from Shiva and a jovial, 'You don't like my cooking?' was enough to convince her to scarf it down and politely ask for seconds.

Sometimes he would rant, scaring Henrietta with his ravings about persecution and misunderstood genius. The only comfort she took during these times was in Sousuke's presence behind her, and the occasional touches he managed on the backs of her hands, twisting his own wrists at what must have been painful angles to reassure her (even if only with his fingertips) that he was still there—that she was not alone.

It was the only thing that kept her from losing her mind. Trapped, frightened, and miserably concerned for her handler, Henrietta gladly accepted Sousuke as a source of support. Someday, she promised herself, she would find a way to pay him back for being there for her.

* * *

"It's finally ready!"

Henrietta's head jerked up from where it had been sagging to her chest. At a guess, it was midnight, though that could have been just the way she felt, and she had to blink several times to clear the drowsiness from her eyes as she found Shiva standing proudly in front of her.

"Ready?" she murmured… or would have, if she hadn't been gagged.

"Yes!" Shiva proclaimed, yanking the gag from her mouth and walking around to give Sousuke the same 'freedom.' "Come my friends," he said grandly, "it's time to meet: Daedalus!"

Two minutes later, Henrietta and Sousuke were standing in a huge, exceptionally cold room, discretely rubbing their arms to regain some of the feeling as they stared uncomprehendingly at a rather old oil painting, depicting what looked like people boarding a ship, hanging on the side of a huge, gun-like machine.

Gesturing to the painting, Shiva proudly declared, "The Fall of Icarus, by Pieter Brueghel, circa 1558! Look over here," he pointed to a figure struggling in the water. "Icarus! Falling unseen into the Aegean. It was this painting that saved my life, you know," he said proudly. "Want to guess how?"

Henrietta and Sousuke exchanged glances, nodding vigorously as Shiva began to study his fingernails in a very bored way.

"Well, when they were coming to… how did they put it," made quote signs in the air with his fingers, "'sanction' me, I remembered seeing this painting in an art book… so when the thug that was going to do the dirty work shot me in the head, I 'accidentally' fell off the cliff where the base that had the other Daedalus was located, pitching myself into the sea and diving down as deep as I could go to make it look like I was dead." He chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. "Do you think that ape even _tried_ to come looking for me?"

Twisting his neck sharply to the side, Shiva concluded, "Anyway, I knew I just had to have this painting—using Daedalus just felt wrong without it—so I set up a bomb at the museum in Milan, left it there for a few months, then tipped the cops off that there was going to be a terrorist bombing."

"You tipped the police off on yourself?" Sousuke asked incredulously.

"Of course!" Shiva said proudly. "What fun would it be to just steal the painting and get away? No! I wanted something a little more fun."

"Then," Henrietta ventured, looking up to his forehead, "I was right… you were the old man."

Shiva bowed like a star returning to the stage for an encore. "Naturally," he declared.

"And I used my psychic powers to make you talk to each other so you would stay out of my way," he said, tapping the side of his head with one finger as he dropped them a conspiratorial wink. When the two exchanged uncertain glances, the man laughed. "Just kidding!" he said with obvious delight, "But it was very useful of you to distract them for me, Mister Soldier Boy."

Still smiling, he gestured to a door leading into a large, open-air chamber.

"In you go."

When Sousuke hesitated, Shiva reached casually behind his back, pulling out a rather large revolver and pressing it lightly against Henrietta's temple. As he thumbed the hammer back, Sousuke mouthed, 'Don't worry,' to Henrietta and stepped into the chamber.

Tossing a pair of handcuffs to Henrietta, he said, "Do me a favor and hook your good hand to that doorknob over there, could you little sister? Don't worry," he added playfully, "this one won't break as easy as the one on the front door." As Henrietta reluctantly secured herself, Shiva leveled the gun at Sousuke. "Now that," he said, indicating the room the young man was in, "is called the firing chamber. I was never sure if it was because it's like the part of a gun where the bullet gets shot out or if it's because that's the middle of a kiln, but either way… you're in for one hell of a ride, Mister Soldier Boy."

Henrietta tried discretely to move her left arm, wincing in pain as the bullet ground between her bones. _I have to get free,_ she thought, testing the handcuffs to see how strong they were. _This… thing looks bad…_

'Bad' seemed to fit the huge machine dominating the center of the room… or rather, the center of the room, and the better part of the three down the hall. She had seen a picture of a supercollider in one of Claes' books once, and if she had to describe what the device known as Daedalus looked like, she would have said it was kind of like a snub-nosed supercollider.

And the room Shiva had called the firing chamber was situated on the business end of the 'barrel.'

"Man the suspense is killing me!" Shiva laughed. "Now let's see… the machine goes on… the Prometheus wave travels through the system… and _bam!_" he slapped his hands together, "Mister Solider Boy goes from ho-hum stiff to Whispering fool in no time! It's like a microwave, only better!"

He winked at Henrietta.

"I made it myself you know," he confided. "Most of this facility had been gutted, so I had to put a _lot_ of work into getting it back into shape. Fortunately," his right eye turned icy white for a moment, "I have a certain… talent for working with this kind of stuff."

There was a moment of silence as he surveyed the scene, clearly satisfied with the fruits of his labor. Henrietta did not understand exactly what was about to happen, but she knew that it wasn't going to be good—and from what Shiva was saying, Sousuke was going to come out of the process changed from the way he was now.

And Henrietta rather liked the way he was now.

Glancing nervously at Sousuke, she whispered, "What will happen to him?"

Though he looked mildly irritated at having to answer what he considered a redundant question, Shiva replied, "He'll be bombarded with a series of rays ranging from gamma to X—just like in the comic books, only with hard science behind it—and when it's all said and done… your pal here will be a god."

He gave Henrietta a broad wink.

"Nifty, huh?"

When the girl gave him a blank stare, he sighed. "Genius is wasted on the young." Shrugging, he rubbed his hands together. "Well, system's primed… Soldier Boy's all set to get cooked… why put it off?" Slowly, he stroked his chin, his eyes surveying the scene for a moment before he snapped his fingers and shouted, "An audience! That's what we're missing! What good is vengeance if there's no witnesses, right little sister?"

Henrietta quickly nodded, desperately trying to buy as much time as she could. "Right," she agreed, "everyone should know how they treated you—how they took you and made you into a… a killing machine, and… and…"

She trailed off as a frightening connection was made.

Looking up, she found Shiva staring down at her with something so close to pity that it made him seem almost human… until he smiled and patted her none too gently on the head.

"I'll make sure you have a front row seat."

* * *

"This is Urzu 6, requesting coordinate update. Repeat, this is Urzu 6, requesting coordinate update."

Melissa glanced back at where Kaname sat staring into space, frowning slightly as Kurz repeated his call for a location spot-check a third time. "You ok?" she asked, wondering if she was breaking some kind of trance.

She knew very little about Whisperds—even less than Kurz, who had seen it firsthand more than four times that she knew of. Was she supposed to talk to the girl? Was it like a sleepwalker, where you weren't supposed to wake them up? As a high tech solider, Melissa knew that wars could be won or lost on information alone, and she hated not having it when she needed it most.

_Can you DIE from Whispering too much?_ she thought suddenly. _I know it's not good for you, but…_

The thought trailed off as Kaname slowly looked up at her, blinking a few times before offering a halfhearted smile. "Yeah," she said belatedly, "I'm fine… just tired."

"Why don't you take a nap?" Melissa suggested. "It'll be a while before we touch down. Might as well get some rest, huh?"

Kaname shook her head. "Not that kind of tired," she said quietly. "Couldn't sleep even if I wanted to—too many… breaths…"

Melissa frowned. "Too many what?"

The younger woman's brow furrowed as she tried to think of a way to explain herself. "There are… others… out there," she said slowly, clearly uncertain of how to say what she wanted to say. "They… breathe," she tapped her head, "sometimes. I can't really describe it properly, but I guess it's like when you hear someone talking down the hall, or behind a door, and you can _almost_ hear what they're saying, you know? Sometimes you catch a word, but most of it's… like a breath… I guess…"

"So it's like… whispered whispers?" Melissa suggested.

Kaname nodded, "Something like that, only more like, umm, the way thinking about a certain color feels in your mind. I know that doesn't really make a lot of sense, but that's the best…"

She trailed off, her eyes going unfocussed so quickly it made Melissa uncomfortable. The older woman shifted in her seat for a moment before murmuring, "Are we almost there, Kurz? All this Whispering can't be good for that girl."

Kurz grinned. "You sound like a little kid," he said lightly. "'Are we there yet, daddy?' Don't worry, little girl," he joked as Melissa gave him a baleful glare, "daddy will get you to the candy store."

Snorting, Melissa said, "I can't be your big sister and your little girl at the same time, you know—and do you really think this is the time for stupid jokes? I may not be a genius, but I'm _pretty_ sure where we're going _isn't_ going to be full of chocolate and gumballs."

"Aww don't sweat it," Kurz countered. "If we can't find anything sweet, I'll give you some sug-"

"If you know what's good for you, you won't even finish that thought, Urzu 6."

In spite of her sharp words, Melissa found some of her tensions easing. Weber might not have been the subtlest guy on the planet, but he had a good head for danger. _If he's relaxed enough to hit on me, things are probably going to end up ok._ Giving her longtime partner a glance, she mentally added, _Then again, he DID admit that he wanted to jump my bones mere minutes after he almost got sliced to death by Quinn, so gauging the situation by his libido is probably NOT the safest course of action._

Back in the cramped passenger section of the chopper, Kaname's lips were moving. Words like 'Prometheus' and 'pain threshold' slipping out of her mouth and vanishing under the steady thrum of the powerful engine propelling them steadily closer to their inevitable destination.

* * *

Shiva whistled while he worked, bustling from one place on the huge machine to another like a busy ant gathering scraps at a picnic. "This is gonna be so great," he cackled, flipping a switch on one of the machine's consoles before rising to his feet and dancing a jig in front of Henrietta and Sousuke. "You're gonna be just like me, Solider Boy!"

Henrietta's stomach did a lazy flip-flop, and if she had been a tougher girl, she might have replied with something like, 'Then I'll have to kill both of you.' As it was, she was too scared to do more than look at Sousuke, wishing (rather selfishly, she thought) that he would reassure her that everything would be ok.

"Well," Shiva said, rubbing his hands briskly as he looked around the room, "I guess I've put it off as long as I can. I was hoping for a few spectators, but honestly, I'm getting tired of waiting. Besides, if someone was coming, they would have been here by now, right?"

As if in answer to his question, there was a huge crash, shaking the building to its foundations as some enormous force slammed into the concrete wall, sending debris flying everywhere. When the dust settled a bit, Henrietta found herself staring at the face of a huge robot laying half in and half out of the building. From its size, and the size of the warehouse, she guessed that the robot would fit easily in the room with them, and even as she watched, the behemoth slid the rest of the way into the building, resting on its stomach as its dull green eyes stared directly at her.

"Ahh the famous ARX-7 Arbalest," Shiva hummed. "Complete with Lambda Driver and all kinds of black technology goodies." He glanced at Sousuke, clucking his tongue. "I suppose the idea is for you to climb aboard and make short work of little old m-"

"Mister Sagara, get down!"

Sousuke flung himself to the ground as the white mecha jerked to its feet, hauling its massive shotgun out and leveling it at Shiva's chest. Unfortunately, the skill of the pilot was such that the deranged man was able to dodge the shot with ease, leaping elegantly into the air and ricocheting off one of the walls like an extra in one of the old wire-heavy kung-fu movies of the late 1990s.

"Damn it!" the Arbalest pilot cried, pumping the shotgun over and over and blasting huge chunks out of the walls in an attempt to gun Shiva down.

Every shot went wide, hitting nothing but concrete as Shiva kept well away from Daedalus, and eventually… the huge gun was silent, issuing nothing but dry clicks as the pilot vainly pulled the trigger and worked the pump.

"Aww, out of ammo so soon?" Shiva pouted, lighting once more in front of the Daedalus' control panel. "That was the best workout I've had in months!"

Throwing down the gun, Arbalest lunged forward, attempting to wrap its massive fist around the gleeful lunatic… but the pilot stumbled, sending the huge machine crashing down onto its face, were it lay thrashing around, unable to regain its footing.

Sousuke frowned.

"Captain…?"

The hatch on the Arbalest blew off, and a woman with a long, platinum-colored ponytail climbed out of the cockpit, her eyes shining with frustration and rage as she tossed the protective headgear she had been wearing angrily to the side.

Shiva's smile vanished. "Well," he whispered, "I didn't expect to see you here, Miss Testarossa."

Tessa's face was a mask of impotent fury. "Call it off, Adam!" she shouted, pointing a finger at the huge machine behind him. "Shut the system down now!"

"I suppose I should throw out some line like, 'Adam's dead' or something similar, but I really don't have the patience," Shiva said blandly. "As for turning off the system, I don't think I will—not until the Prometheus wave hits, that its." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Then Solider Boy here will be Whispering with the best of them."

Tessa glanced at Sousuke, and for the first time, he noticed that her eyes were not their usual gray, but a rusty, reddish-brown—like the color of dried blood.

"We won't let that happen."

All eyes went to the door as a figure stepped out of the shadows.

"_Kaname_?" Sousuke blurted. "How-"

"There are more," Kaname cut in, walking over to Tessa's side and allowing Sousuke to see that both girls were speaking at the same time. "They're coming—by boat, by helicopter, any way they can get here… they're coming… for you."

"And… you two are the opening gambit?" Shiva drawled. "You should have brought a hundred," he laughed. "You should have brought a _million_… but even that wouldn't have been enough!"

Tessa's mouth was set in a thin, hard line. "More will come," she said quietly. "They are already on the way—you would feel it if you weren't…" he lips twisted, "tainted. If we fail, still more will come, and if they fail-"

"Still more will come?" Shiva cut in innocently. "A tidalwave? A flood?" he threw his arms out to the sides and turned his face up to the sky. "A _tsunami _of Whispered?" Shaking his head in amusement, he walked over and put a hand on Henrietta's head. "You see, little sister," he said blithely, "the problem is that there are too many cooks and not enough stew—and Miss Testarossa, her friend and I are stew. Do you understand?"

Though it was obvious that she really didn't, Henrietta still nodded, fearful of what would happen if she didn't.

"So I'm going to make some more—so much that there will be plenty to go around!"

"I told you, that isn't going to happen," Kaname informed him. "This is your last chance—turn off the Daedalus or there will be…"

There was a storm of rushing feet, and from all entrances to the complex a torrent of soldiers burst in, led by a cadre of gunslinger girls, and all of Mithril's finest… or at least, Henrietta assumed that it was Mithril's finest.

Who else would they send at a time like this?

"…consequences," Tessa finished belatedly, looking around at the assembled troopers as if seeing them as nothing more than a hindrance.

Shiva himself did not seem to be bothered by them either. "Consequences from this bunch?" he chortled. "Unlikely."

"Hold your fire," Tessa ordered, pursing her lips as Shiva rested on hand casually on a large, blatant lever sticking out of Daedalus's control panel. "One misplaced shot and you're killing Sergeant Sagara."

A figure detached itself from the crowd, and Henrietta was amazed to see Lorenzo, the head of Section Two himself, striding into the clearing. "Madam Captain," he said politely (a noteworthy event in and of itself, since Henrietta had never seen the man defer to anyone, except perhaps Jean), "it's been a while."

Kaname was the one to respond, though as she spoke, a small trickle of blood ran from her right nostril. "Hello again," she murmured, never taking her eyes off of Shiva, "Please sir, with all due respect… leave this to us. Time is running short—we can't Whisper for much longer, and before you suggest opening fire and sacrificing Sergeant Sagara for the greater good, I should tell you that the Daedalus creates a powerful electromagnetic wave the second it's turned on… any bullets in the air at the time would just be pulled into the field without reaching their destination."

Lorenzo sighed, turning away so his back was too Shiva as he said, "I figured it wouldn't be easy," he lowered his voice, gesturing for one of his girls to step forward as he barely breathed, "which is why I had Rico here load up with poly-ceramic cased, Teflon-coated hard-lead core rounds. Say the word and she'll take him down."

Henrietta nearly wept as Rico and Triela walked up to stand next to Tessa and Kaname. She longed to call out to them… but considering Shiva's temperament, it would probably just make them targets.

"If it comes to that, I'll let you know," Tessa replied, "but for now… I can't risk the chance that he might pull that lever as he falls."

Bowing slightly, Lorenzo muttered, "We owe your organization a lot… so I'll let you handle this for the next ten minutes."

Tessa's lips quirked up slightly. "Someday we'll have a discussion about what your organization owes mine, sir," she said coolly, "but ten minutes will be plenty."

"Adam," Kaname called as Lorenzo stepped back into the mass of soldiers, "your powers are out of your control, and your mind has been twisted by Daedalus. We cannot let you go unchecked for even a moment longer."

"Can't we all just be friends?" Shiva wondered petulantly.

"No."

"Very well," the madman said, his face losing all of its joking quality, "Then wither… and burn."

Tessa and Kaname hissed in unison as the man's eyes turned frosty white, each girl taking a half step back as Shiva tried to Whisper himself into their minds. The battle was intense, or Henrietta thought it was, since none of them actually moved—they simply… stared at each other, though from the grunts of effort all three made, it must have been a spectacular battle.

_Think,_ she told herself, glancing to Sousuke for some kind of clue. _THINK! He can't be shot… he can't be… Whispered, whatever that is. He has to have a weakness—he has to!_

Sousuke's eyes seemed to bore into hers—filled with compassion and concern. They were such a lovely shade of brown, she mused, glancing briefly back to the silent battle before looking back to Sousuke. In the last week, she had gotten to know those eyes very well. She had woken up next to them, fallen asleep next to them, and watched them surreptitiously every time they had scanned the terrain for a trap or sleeping guard on the ship. They were kind eyes—understanding eyes—eyes that-

Suddenly it hit her.

"Triela," she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Elsa—_remember_ _Elsa_!"

Understanding immediately, the other gunslinger girl snatched up Rico's rifle and dropped to one knee, quickly sighting on Shiva's right eye and pulling the trigger before he could do so much blink. The bullet sped straight and true, but in her haste, Triela had miscalculated the man's height, sending the bullet into his eye… but at such an angle that instead of penetrating his brainpan, it was flattened against the top of his eye socket.

"Brilliant!" the young man shouted, ignoring the blood gushing from his ruined eye. "Absolutely brilliant! Such aim! Such showmanship! If I was a sporting man, I'd give you a second chance! But seeing as I'm in somewhat of a hurry," without pausing for a breath, he kicked at a chunk of rock next to his foot, sending it speeding through the air with incredible accuracy to smash into the barrel of Rico's rifle, "I simply can't let you have another go. Sorry. Now, as I was saying, I-"

He cut himself off, clutching his head as Tessa and Kaname closed their eyes, blood running freely from their noses as they Whispered with all of their strength.

"Get… out… of… my _MIND!_" Shiva roared, turning his last word into the equivalent of a Whispered scream.

The two girls rocked back on their heels, their eyes rolling back into their heads as they collapsed to the ground with identical, muffled thumps, their faces perfectly mirroring each others' shock and dismay as they were hammered into unconsciousness.

Panting, the madman grinned, wiping a trickle of spit from the corner of his mouth as he murmured, "Is that the best you have to offer? Your efforts are meaningless! I've already released two other-"

"Ahh!"

He jerked around as Henrietta screamed, his eyes widening in shock as the girl threw herself forward, extending her body as far as the handcuffs would allow and forcing her left arm up. A sickening crunch echoed through the room as her synthetic muscles forced the bullet in her shoulder to grind against her bones, shattering the top of her humerus, but she continued her forward momentum, using the advantage of surprise to thrust the first two fingers of her hand into Shiva's remaining eye.

Without hesitating, Sousuke—now freed from the fear of being cut down—hurled himself out of the firing chamber, hitting Shiva squarely between the shoulder blades and driving his full weight into the defective Whispered, forcing Henrietta's tiny fingers all the way into his brain.

Henrietta sobbed in agony as the weight of the two men sent waves of hot, furious pain radiating through her shoulder, but she braced her legs, pushing back with all the strength she could manage as Shiva's body shuddered, convulsed… and finally went still, slumping forward as Henrietta's shoulder shattered, her arm falling to her side as even her reinforced muscles shredded under the intense pressure.

"Henrietta!"

Sousuke's voice called to her from somewhere very far away.

"Henrietta, hold on!"

A weak smile graced her lips. "Hey," she whispered, "you… didn't call me 'Miss.'"

Less than a second later, the pain she had been fending off hit her like a jackhammer, and Henrietta collapsed into Sousuke's arms with a pathetic whimper, spiraling down into unconsciousness as the young Mithril agent screamed for a medic.

* * *

Sousuke was amazed by the sheer number of agents—both Mithril and Social Welfare Agency—that swarmed the island once it was clear that Shiva had been neutralized. Almost before he could breathe, Henrietta, Tessa, and Kaname had been hustled off by white-clad medics, leaving him alone in the eye of the storm with Kalinin, who seemed to be in charge of the Mithril presence, since Tessa was incapacitated.

Melissa and Kurz, he found out, had landed on the island with Kaname, though before they had even gotten on the ground, the Whispered girl had leaped out of the helicopter and disappeared into the jungle, leaving the two unfortunate Mithril agents to hurriedly touch down and give chase, though by the time they had powered the chopper down, other troops were arriving, leaving them no choice but to explain the situation to the best of their abilities.

As far as Sousuke knew, they were off with Kaname somewhere, which is where he wanted to be… as soon as he found out what, exactly, had happened here.

"So you see," Kalinin was explaining to him, "Daedalus was a joint project that both agencies tried their best to bury. Mithril was not always self-sufficient, Sergeant, and the charter of the Social Welfare Agency was on par with our own goals, so when they offered to compensate us for the secrets of cybernetic technology…"

He trailed off, allowing Sousuke to conclude, "We jumped at the chance."

Kalinin nodded. "We had some disagreements over what candidates to use for the project, which resulted in some bad blood between our groups," he confided, "but ultimately, the power had left our hands. As you can well guess, Shiva—or Adam, as we named him—was the first to undergo cybernetic enhancement, as well as the first we subjected to the Prometheus cycle. It was his breakdown and subsequent psychosis that convinced us to abandon the project as too dangerous, for no matter how beneficial it would be to have unlimited Whispereds, it was certainly not worth the risk of having them all go out of their minds."

Gesturing around, he added, "We had no idea a second facility had been created, however, nor that Adam had escaped the measures taken to neutralize him."

Pondering this information for a moment, Sousuke slowly asked, "What happened to the subject called 'Eve?' Shiva told us that she… was treated poorly."

"Ahh Eve," Kalinin sighed. "I was hoping you had not learned of her, Sergeant." Seeing that Sousuke was still waiting for an explanation, Kalinin said, "We had subjected her to the Prometheus cycle only a few hours before Adam's psychosis became evident, and it was in relocating her following Adam's breakdown that she was taken by a group of terrorists looking to find out what the Whispereds were and what they could do." He cleared his throat. "You… met her, then," he murmured. "On that mission in Russia… before you were assigned to protect Miss Chidori. You brought her home to us."

Sousuke nodded, too tired to feel any surprise. "What happened to her after that, sir?" he wondered. "I know it isn't my place to ask, but-"

Kalinin lifted one hand, cutting Sousuke off as he replied, "The mental strain was too much for her, Sergeant. Let's not talk about it anymore."

There was a moment of silence before Sousuke cleared his throat.

"Sir…"

"Hmm?"

"Shiva was saying something when Henrietta attacked him," Sousuke whispered. "Something about… two others."

Nodding, Kalinin cast a long, thoughtful look at the firing chamber before answering, "Well, considering that he destroyed all of his records… and he's in no shape to answer questions, we can only hope that we'll never have to find out what he meant."

"Sir," a technician ran up to them, saluting quickly as he explained, "The captain and Miss Chidori are both still unconscious, but the medical team believes that there is no lasting damage."

Kalinin frowned. "Believes?" he said, his voice growing cold and businesslike. "What, exactly, does that mean?"

The technician coughed into his fist. "Well, sir," he said awkwardly, "both are, umm, Whispered. Their normal tests are abnormal, and the tests the medical team just finished are similar to their normal reports, so…"

"So by being abnormal, they're normal," Kalinin murmured, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"That's right," the technician said apologetically, "but they want to stress that they'll be able to get better results once we reach headquarters."

Kalinin rolled his eyes. "Of course they do. Well, carry on."

"Sir!"

The man saluted and took his leave, allowing Sousuke to inquire, "What now?"

"Now?" Kalinin shrugged. "Now I suppose… we leave."

Sousuke blinked. "But, sir, what about Daedalus? Shouldn't we destroy it?"

Hesitating, Kalinin murmured, "I'm afraid that's not my decision, Sergeant. I've never received a direct order to destroy it, and it is a very expensive piece of black technology." Seeing that his subordinate was on the verge of speaking out, Kalinin lowered his voice. "Of course, it may have sustained some… unfortunate damage in the battle with Shiva, so I doubt it will ever function correctly again. In fact, I feel confident that even if there was no major damage from the battle, some key components will have been smashed beyond recovery—most likely due to Shiva's own incompetence, of course."

Though he wished for something more conclusive than this, Sousuke knew that bureaucracy had tied their hands.

As they lapsed into a thoughtful silence, one of the girls from the Social Welfare Agency's group detached from the crowd and walked up to them, bowing politely as she said, "Are you Mister Sousuke?"

"Yes," Sousuke replied, straightening as he looked for any sign of Henrietta in the throng.

The girl waited for him to look back in her direction. When he did, she said, "I have a message for you. Henrietta said not to worry about her, she'll be fine… and she said to thank you for everything you did for her."

Sousuke shook his head. "She's the one who saved me," he murmured. "I-"

"There's something else," the girl went on, motioning for Sousuke to lean closer.

Doing as he was asked, Sousuke's eyes nearly bugged out of his head as the girl put her hands on his shoulders and pressed her lips briefly to his cheek.

"From Henrietta," she whispered, smiling a bit at his bafflement. "Goodbye, Mister Sousuke."

"Goodbye, umm…"

"Triela."

Inclining her head slightly, the gunslinger girl turned away and was quickly lost in the crowd.

Sousuke jumped slightly as Kalinin cleared his throat. "I saw that girl's shoulder," he said quietly. "The damage was… impressive."

Sousuke straightened his shirt, thankful that Kalinin had not mentioned the kiss. "She'll recover," he told the man. "She's…" he hesitated, knowing that Kalinin was well aware of what Henrietta was, but hating to say it out loud and change the view of Henrietta in his mind. "She's a remarkable girl."

"Indeed," Kalinin said, nodding his approval at Sousuke's uncharacteristic tact. "I suppose there is no longer any reason for us to be here. Let's go, Sergeant."

"Yes sir."

They started towards the waiting helicopters, but as the crowd began to disperse, Sousuke found himself still searching for any sign of the young girl that he had grown inexplicably close to. Small, timid, and quiet, she was still one of the bravest fighters he had ever met, and he wished that there had been time for them to get to know each other without the constant threat of imminent death hanging over their heads.

He touched his cheek, coloring slightly as he wondered if Henrietta had really asked Triela to kiss him, or if the older girl had taken it upon herself to offer him some strange sort of closure, since he would not get to see Henrietta again.

_Ever,_ he thought suddenly. _We… probably won't ever meet again._

For a moment, he thought he saw her being rushed into a helicopter, and he tried in vain to get a better look, but before he could get closer, the door to the helicopter was closed, the craft was rising into the sky, leaving him with nothing but unanswered questions and an odd burning in his chest as he realized that he honestly wanted to see her again.

He was one of the last members of Mithril to board the helicopters and leave the island behind.

Continued…

Preread courtesy of Stahn Aileron and Alpha Zulu.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer – see part 1

Operation Icarus

By Random1377

Part 4 – Joint Ventures

Tea and sweets—two of Henrietta's favorite things—sat ignored on the small table in Triela's room as she and Rico quietly polished their guns. It was a task every gunslinger girl was well used to, so neither really paid attention to what they were doing, allowing their fingers to run on autopilot and letting the quiet of the atmosphere go undisturbed save for the clinking of metal on metal as they brushed their weapons to a lustrous shine.

The old adage, 'a soldier is only as good as his weapon' was one that the Social Welfare Agency took to heart, and every tool (the cyborgs included) was kept well-honed against the time when they would see action next. For the moment, their time was their own, and Rico and Triela found their conversation wandering to their injured friend.

"Have you seen her today?"

Rico raised the barrel of her pistol up to one eye, ensuring that it was clean before replying, "Henrietta you mean? No, I heard she was in surgery again, so I didn't try."

"She's first gen, you know," Triela said matter-of-factly. "Her bones weren't reinforced to level 2 yet. Are yours?"

All of the girls were technically first generation cyborgs, with the exception of the newest girl, Petrushka. There had been some retrofitting, however, in an attempt to make what Rico had overheard Jean call 'version one-point-five' cyborgs. Certain flaws in the design of the first generation girls had been pointed out, such as the fact that the reinforcing of the cyborgs' bone structure was not up to par with the strength of their muscles, resulting in potential breaks if too much pressure was applied.

A case all too strongly illustrated by the largely self-inflicted damage to Henrietta's shoulder.

Rico shook her head. "Not yet," she said. "Claes had it done though. She said it really hurts."

"Oh."

Silence fell as the two reassembled their weapons. They had not spoken about their friend much since returning from the recovery mission, mostly because neither really knew what to say. One of their own had been hurt in the line of duty—what was to discuss? It was an accepted fact that all of them might one day be injured, or even die, for the Social Welfare Agency. There was no need to beat a dead horse.

Rico _did_ have one question that had been on her mind, however, and as she laid her gun on the table, she quietly asked, "Did Henrietta really ask you to kiss that man?"

She half expected Triela to sidestep the question, so it was somewhat of a surprise when the older girl shook her head and replied, "No, I just felt like it."

"Felt like it?" Rico asked, sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. "How come?"

Triela shrugged. "I just did."

"Oh."

Triela holstered her gun and rose to her feet, turning her chair around before straddling it and resting her arms on the back of it. She stared down at the un-tasted tea for a moment before murmuring, "Henrietta liked that man. Did you see her face when she was telling me what to say to him? She was so desperate—it kinda made me feel sorry for her… like she had a second handler, or something…"

Rico waited as the other girl trailed off, clearly lost in thought. "So," she prompted curiously, "that's why you kissed him?"

Blinking as she was roused from her thoughts, Triela shook her head. "Well it wasn't really a kiss," she pointed out. "Just a peck, really. If we were French, no one would have even noticed."

It was tempting for Rico to point out that they _weren't_ French, and that Triela had yet to explain just why she had 'pecked' the young Mithril soldier in the first place, but she kept this observation to herself, reasoning that if Triela wanted her to know, she would tell her.

Though it was a source of much confusion.

_If Henrietta didn't ask her to,_ Rico thought, _and she wasn't ordered to… why do it? I don't get it._

There was nothing in their conditioning that prohibited it, Rico mused—or none that she knew of—but really, what would motivate it? A boy they had barely met? It didn't make sense. Rico could see Triela wanting to kiss Hillshire, but then, most of the girls had some kind of feeling for their handlers… it was just the way things were.

Personally, Rico saw nothing special in the Mithril agent. He was handsome enough, she supposed, but nothing out of the ordinary. What little interest she had in the opposite sex to begin with ran towards quiet, gentle people, like… like…

The thought trailed off.

Rico could vaguely recall a feeling regarding music, but that was about it.

"Triela," she said hesitantly, deciding it was time for a change in topic, "did you… understand what was going on with that guy? I mean, I know he was a cyborg, like us, but… but what were those two girls talking about? Do you have any idea?"

Triela bit her lip for a moment. "I don't really know," she admitted slowly. "I think they were talking about psychic stuff—you know, mind reading and things like that—but I don't really believe in that kind of stuff, so I don't really get it."

Holding up one of her hands, Rico slowly curled it into a fist. "Do you think people believe in things like us?" she whispered, spreading her fingers and looking through them into Triela's eyes. "Do you?"

They stared at each other for a moment before Triela snorted. "You're sure getting into the mood," she muttered. "But I get your point." She hesitated, then said, "You believe it, don't you? That they were… fighting with their brains?"

It was Rico's turn to shrug. "Jean hasn't told me what he thinks yet," she said lightly. "But I guess it doesn't matter, right? I mean, they all died."

Triela nodded. "I guess," she said. "They sure looked dead, anyway."

Neither girl had been close enough to hear the medics give this prognosis, but there had been a lot of headshaking over the two supposed telepath girls which led them to conclude that if they were not dead, they must be on their way. As for the man Triela had shot, he was undoubtedly dead, since both girls had seen them pull Henrietta's fingers out of the man's skull.

Cyborg or not, there was no way to survive having your brain clawed out of your head.

"I miss Henrietta," Triela said suddenly, stretching her arms up over her head and looking away from Rico's inquisitive gaze. "She'd say something like, 'I'm sure they're ok,' or, 'let's have some tea.' She wouldn't even think about if they could read minds or not."

"It's scary," Rico mused. "What if they really could read your mind? I… I wouldn't want to be in the same room with them if they could."

Triela frowned. "What if they didn't even have to be close to you to do it?" she murmured. "What if they could do it from anywhere on Earth?"

Involuntarily, Rico shivered. "Don't, Triela," she said timidly. "That's scary."

Smiling, Triela said, "You sound just like Henrietta."

Rico blinked, then slowly returned the smile.

The smiles faded and both girls rose to their feet as an authoritative knock sounded on the door. Pushing it open without waiting for a reply, Hillshire leaned into the room. "We have a mission," he said crisply. "Rico, you come too. Jean's already in the briefing room."

Both girls nodded and started for the door, leaving the tray with their refreshments untouched and pushing all thoughts of their injured friend, kisses, and telepathy far from their minds, glad to be given something more concrete to focus their attention on.

* * *

The air in the Tuatha de Dannon's briefing room was curious at best, with almost no tension present in any of those convened. Word on the massive sub was that the current mission was going to be information gathering—a milk run at best, a minor inconvenience at worst. Most of the assembled Mithril officers were more interested in hearing about their captain than this nothing mission, so all eyes were trained expectantly on Kalinin and Mardukas as they consulted a plain manila folder and spoke in low voices, apparently ignorant of the mass of waiting bodies behind them.

Sousuke, for one, was doubly anxious. Kaname was his charge, and perhaps a little bit more, honestly speaking. The captain fit into a similar category, though perhaps to a lesser degree. Both were important to him, and so it was important to him to find out where they had been for the past few days. Every enquiry he had submitted on their status had been met with avoidance or outright stonewalling, and the young sergeant was starting to get worried.

If everything was fine, where were they? If something was wrong, why had there been no announcement? Things did not add up, and when things did not add up, it usually indicated that something was (as the American military might say) F.U.B.A.R.

"We are ready to begin," Kalinin said, finally turning his attention to the assembled agents and standing at full attention as he addressed them. "As you well know, we have recently completed a mission involving a renegade cybernetic operative known as Adam, during which Captain Testarossa and our friend, Kaname Chidori, were disabled."

He gestured for Mardukas to take over, inclining his head gratefully as the other man stepped forward. "At this time," he began crisply, "Captain Testarossa and Miss Chidori are in an unconscious, but stable condition. We have no ETA for when they might awaken, but our medical team assures me that both are exhibiting excellent Alpha wave activity, as well as steady REM activity. To put it plainly—they are both asleep and dreaming, and we don't know when they will wake up."

The two men waited for this information to sink in before Kalinin stepped forward once more. "We have every confidence that both ladies will recover very soon," he said confidently. "In the meantime, however, we cannot remain idle. Mithril is an organization founded on action, and the time has come for us to mobilize once again."

"It has come to our attention," Mardukas said smoothly, "that the Daedalus may not have been the only device that Adam was involved with. We therefore… yes Sergeant, you have a question?"

Sousuke lowered his hand. "With all due respect, sir," he said, "it was my impression that Adam was working alone. He never mentioned receiving any financial support, and spoke several times of his resourcefulness in reactivating the Daedalus single-handedly."

Kalinin cleared his throat. "Adam was a madman," he murmured coolly. "And as you well know, madmen are often bankrolled by other madmen—or did you think that Adam saved up to restart the Icarus Project with his paper route money?" Before Sousuke could reply, Kalinin continued. "In case you'd also forgotten, Adam was a Whispered… and he had plenty of time to run unchecked, developing whatever he chose. Fortunately for us, he was also unfocused and deranged, limiting the projects he would consider worth his time to pursue. Unfortunately for us, we suspected that at least one of his projects has the potential to cause great harm. That, Sergeant, is why we are here."

"This will be a joint mission," Mardukas explained as soon as Sousuke had nodded. "There will be an insertion team, and a support team. Each team will consist of members of Mithril and a third party—the Italian based Social Welfare Agency. If you will turn your attention to the door on the left, you will now meet your counterparts from that organization."

Nodding to the door, Mardukas glanced at the assembled soldiers, taking careful note of their reactions as the agents from the Social Welfare Agency filed in.

He was not disappointed.

"They're just kids!"

Indeed, the group filing into the briefing room was comprised of half adults, and half adolescent girls. First came a tall man with short blonde hair and a girl of about ten. Next, a man with black hair and dark brown eyes followed by a girl with two ponytails. Finally, after a moment's delay, one last man, with black hair and steel blue eyes trailed by a girl with short brown hair, her left arm immobilized by a simple white sling.

Sousuke nearly rose to his feet, but it was unnecessary, as Henrietta immediately scanned the room, her face lighting in a happy smile as she found him in the crowd. Hurrying to catch her counterpart, her smile fell away, and Sousuke was reminded that she was as much a soldier as he was… and this was not a time for fraternization—this was business, and they were there to work.

Mardukas sighed as the chatter slowly died down. "I assure you," he said firmly, "that each of these agents is as well trained as any of you." He surveyed the skeptical faces before him, taking note of Sousuke's unsmiling stare. "Perhaps a demonstration is in order?" Mardukas suggested, turning to the blonde man for confirmation.

"Rico," the man murmured, "step forward."

The small blonde girl broke ranks and moved forward to stand in front of the man, saying only, "Yes sir," and waiting patiently for her next instruction.

"No killing."

"Yes sir."

A small laugh rose up from some of the soldiers, though it was quickly quelled when they noticed that Sousuke was shaking his head.

"Sir," he said diffidently, "I don't mean to speak out of turn, but this is more dangerous than it needs to be."

"Perhaps," Mardukas said tiredly, "but as you can see by looking around you, it is the only way to establish credibility."

After a moment of thoughtful silence, the man who had ordered Rico to step forward asked, "Do you have someone in mind, Commander?"

"I'll take volunteers," Mardukas informed him, nodding as a big solider (the one who had laughed loudest when Henrietta and the rest had come in) eagerly stepped forward. "Very well," Mardukas sighed. "Lieutenant, your orders are simple. Please subdue this young lady as quickly as possible. Non-lethal force only, if you please."

"I ain't gonna go easy on ya girly," the man warned, cracking his knuckles menacingly. "Hope ya got good dental."

He swung without further warning, throwing a wicked haymaker directly at the girl's jaw, but a moment before it connected, she turned her head to the side, her hair fluttering slightly in the breeze generated by the man's ham-sized fist. A few chuckles could be heard in the crowd, especially when the man threw another punch, only to have it sidestepped, leaving the girl once more unscathed.

And so began a bizarre dance as the man tried over and over to land a hit, but the more he swung, the more the blonde girl ducked, wove, and moved to the side, leaving him hitting nothing but air as the soft laughter in the room grew, eventually turning into good-natured ribbing and catcalls—all of which Mardukas allowed, shaking his head as Sousuke opened his mouth to lodge another protest.

"Rico," the blonde man said finally.

"Yes sir?" the girl replied, ducking back to avoid yet another hit.

"…you _do_ have permission to retaliate."

The girl nodded. "Yes sir."

When the big man swung next, Rico stepped to the side, catching him by the wrist and driving her elbow into his stomach. The man dropped to his knees, coughing for breath and cursing at the girl standing in front of him. When a few more snickers rose from the crowd, the man turned an angry shade of red. Drawing his gun, he let out a growl of rage… but when he thrust it towards the girl, she slapped her hand over the top, clamping her fingers around the barrel and stopping the slide. With a sudden, sharp twist, she yanked the gun from his hand and deftly disassembled it, dropping the component pieces onto the floor at her feet.

Her expression never changed.

"Well then," Mardukas said, "I think that-"

Screaming, the lieutenant drew a large combat knife from his boot and lunged at the small girl. As Mardukas opened his mouth to order the other soldiers to intervene, Rico caught the man by the wrist and dropped to one knee, driving the palm of her free hand into his elbow with quick, brutal efficiency. A sickening crunch signaled the real end of the demonstration, and as the man fell to the floor in a dead faint, Rico turned to Mardukas and gave him an apologetic bow.

"I'm sorry sir," she whispered, her voice sounding like a shout in the now-silent room. "I didn't mean to break the bone."

Mardukas cleared his throat, motioning for someone to call for a medic. "That concludes the demonstration," he murmured. "Does anyone have any questions?"

Everyone gaped at Sousuke raised his hand.

"Yes, sergeant?"

Keeping his eyes on Henrietta, Sousuke said, "Which team will I be on, sir?"

* * *

Henrietta had never been a fan of helicopters. Loud, bumpy, and always cold, the lumbering carriers she was used to were a necessary evil in the military, which did not mean that she had to like it, only that she didn't have a choice in when to ride in one. For this ride, she did not mind it so much. The two teams had been packed into one copter, so there was a lot of body heat to go around, and the fact that she was sandwiched between two battle-equipped men meant that she was well-padded on both sides.

Besides which, she was nestled between her favorite person in the world (on her left), and the young man she had endured Hell with (on her right). The only real regret she had was the tension inside the cabin, making it almost impossible to talk to Jose or Sousuke, the latter being foremost on her mind, as she had not even seen him for what felt like an eternity.

_Weeks,_ she reminded herself as the helicopter continued along its way. _It's only been a couple weeks since that time, but it feels like so much longer._ She glanced discretely at Sousuke, but he was staring straight ahead of him with his arms folded across his chest—every inch the solider. _I wonder if his friend still cooks for him,_ she thought. _He looks like he's been-_

Her thought was interrupted as the blonde man sitting across from Sousuke abruptly cleared his throat and said, "No hard feelings, huh?"

When it was clear that the man was talking to her, Henrietta murmured, "I don't know what you mean, sir."

"The shoulder," the man said, nodding towards her sling. "I figured I should say sorry now before things get started—just in case you're the kind of girl who carries a grudge."

Henrietta's brow furrowed for a moment, but it quickly cleared as she realized, "You were the sniper at the museum." When the man gave her a weak smile, Henrietta said, "It's ok, sir. We were enemies. I understand."

Rubbing the back of his neck, the man mumbled, "I shoot her in the arm, she calls me sir." Raising his voice he said, "How about you call me Kurz, ok? Never really liked the whole sir thing, ya know? Makes me feel old."

"You're quite the marksman," Jose observed, taking over for Henrietta as she looked to him for help. (She had not been given specific instructions NOT to refer to anyone by first name, but it was not something she was used to.) "Henrietta told me that she couldn't find your position… and her eyesight is rather good, so your range must have been at least, what, a hundred yards?"

Kurz grinned. "Seventy actually, but not far off." He looked at Henrietta with newfound appreciation. "Not many people can spot a concealed target even fifty yards away without a scope or binoculars. Your eyesight must be great."

Blushing faintly, Henrietta whispered, "Thank you, sir."

"Didn't I just say-aw forget it," Kurz groaned, throwing his hands melodramatically into the air.

After a moment of quiet, Rico tentatively asked, "At seventy yards… wouldn't it be hard to account for wind velocity, sir?"

The grin returned to Kurz' face. "Someone knows her stuff," he said, leaning forward in his seat and resting his elbows on his knees. "Yeah, it's hard at that range, but not impossible—and being that far out makes it harder for people to see me… like your friend here. If I was at thirty yards, she would have spotted me long before I ever got a shot off."

Rico nodded, looking hesitantly at Jean to see if he minded her talking to a stranger before asking, "But when you're that far away, and you can't be accurate…" she trailed off, struggling to find the words to ask what she wanted to ask without offending the blonde man.

Kurz dropped her a wink. "Yeah," he said, answering her unasked question, "being that far away makes it a little harder to be accurate, but if you can get the first shot off, you usually don't have to worry about getting the bullet exactly in the right place a hundred percent of the time. See what I'm saying?"

Pondering this, Rico slowly nodded. "A disabling shot is as good as a killing shot most of the time, right?"

"Exactly!"

Henrietta stole a glance at Jean as the two snipers began talking about how this strategy might apply in lowlight situations, but Rico's handler seemed completely indifferent to the conversation. Looking around, she realized that just about everyone else on the helicopter was trying to contain smiles or even outright laughter as the conversation grew more and more animated.

Confused, she looked to Triela, who smiled at her knowingly and whispered, "Looks like Rico made a friend."

* * *

Another mission, another chance for things to go wrong. Sousuke knew this was a pessimistic attitude, but he had learned long ago that pessimism and survival often went hand in hand. Another way to put it, he supposed, was 'anything will go wrong that can,' or to put it yet another way, Sousuke and Murphy would have gotten along famously.

"Insertion team is in," Kurz reported. "Guess now we wait, huh?"

"Affirmative," Sousuke replied, turning to the man at his side. "Anything to add, Agent Jean?"

"Nothing," the older man replied, peering through a set of binoculars at the mansion below them. "We have a good position. Between your man and Rico, we should have full coverage of the entire building."

It was the longest sentence the blonde man had spoken to Sousuke since their arrival. Absently, he wondered if that meant that he was warming up, or that he was nervous.

They were situated on a small hill overlooking the posh mansion where the infiltration portion of the operation was taking place. Triela had not complained about being forced into a frilly dress (Henrietta had confided in Sousuke that the girl preferred boys' style clothes), but the expression on her face had spoken volumes.

The biggest frown, however, had come from Melissa when she found out that she was designated to pose as Triela's mother. At the suggestion—or rather, the look she shot Mardukas—someone had thoughtfully suggested that she play the role of a trophy wife instead. The pairing, it turned out, had been complimentary. Triela's features were similar enough to her 'father's' to convincingly pass her off, and Melissa made the perfect stepmother, though she _did_ argue for a paired insertion rather than including Triela, just to 'make it more realistic.'

How much of this was based in her desire to avoid bringing a young girl into the line of fire, and how much was based on her desire to have Hillshire to herself, was up for debate.

"Do we have any word yet on what they're looking for?" Jose enquired. "It's going to be an awfully pointless mission if we just have them wandering around hoping to find secret documents."

Sousuke shook his head. "All we know is that Adam's last project was supposedly housed here," he said. "What it is, we're still not sure. Personally, I would have rather known who was funding him, so we would know what level of opposition to expect."

"Agreed," Jean muttered. "Normally, most people wouldn't suspect a little girl—which is Triela's role in all this… but considering that this Adam character was a cyborg, we should assume that anyone he was affiliated with will know who made him and know all about the way we work. Basically," he concluded, "we should assume that we're walking into a trap."

Nodding, Sousuke silently decided that it was nerves driving the conversation rather than comfort or admiration.

"There's some kind of commotion," Kurz said suddenly. "People are moving towards the door… can't see why, but they're panicking."

"Rico, Weber, it's too bright in there," Jean said smoothly. "Our people have night vision. Make it night."

Kurz pulled away from his scope for a moment. "Hey Rico," he said with a rakish grin, "Betcha I can take out all the lights on the second floor in less than fifteen seconds."

Rico just stared as the gaijin sighted down his scope and did exactly as he said, darkening the second level of the mansion in exactly fourteen seconds.

"Your turn," he said brightly.

Looking to Jean for a moment to make sure it was ok to make sport out of serious business, Rico peered through her scope and did her best to match Kurz's speed and accuracy.

"Darn!" she complained under her breath as every light went down on the first floor except for one.

"Not bad," Kurz said as she took care of the last light. "Not bad at all."

Rico gave him a sunny smile, pleased with the approval in his voice. "Thank you Mister Kurz."

Kurz laughed. "It's just Kurz, kiddo." Looking back through his scope, he reported, "Lights are out, chief. We're on night vision starting now. Anyone you want us to paint?"

Jean peered through the binoculars. "Keep track of our people," he said quietly. "Silence anyone that gets in their way. Sergeant," he turned to Sousuke. "I haven't heard anything on that radio of yours."

"We're being jammed," Sousuke confirmed, rising to his feet and grabbing his assault rifle. Slinging the strap over his shoulder, he said, "Once more of the civilians are out of the way, we should move in."

"Agreed," Jean murmured. "I don't like the way this is going down. We should have brought more personnel."

Sousuke nodded. "Agreed."

Without looking up from his scope, Kurz mumbled, "I'm glad you guys agree so much. Really makes me feel confident that you're on the same page."

Jean and Sousuke exchanged a glance, and Sousuke shook his head and looked away. "You're embarrassing our organization, Kurz," he muttered.

"Jean?"

"Yes, Rico?"

"I've got something on the west side of the building," the gunslinger girl reported. "Some kind of light."

"Flashlight?" Jean asked, looking towards the area Rico indicated.

As he raised the binoculars, the entire west wall of the mansion exploded outward, showering the expensive cars in the parking lot with glass, wood, rock, and insulation. The confused screams in the mansion became screams of terror, and the exodus became a stampede as the partygoers ran from the sound of the explosion.

Sousuke stared at the destruction, his hands tightening on his rifle. "It's Italy all over," he whispered. "Kurz, where are Mao and her team?"

"Caught in a knot of people," Kurz replied. "They're almost through… moving towards the west of the building… looks like they don't have their guns out yet."

Jean nodded his approval. "Trying to keep from making more panic," he said. "Good work."

Kurz groaned. "Bad news," he said tensely, "You know all those bedrooms on the second floor? I've got men in black coming out of them and heading downstairs. All armed… first few making contact with the party people, and… not opening fire. Looks like they're trying to corral them… moving them towards the doors." He pulled his eye away from his scope for a moment. "Man, when the party's over at this place they really want you out in a hurry."

"Jean?" Rico piped up. "There's also a group heading into the building through the front door. It looks like they came out of the garage."

"More crowd control?" Kurz wondered.

"Yes sir," Rico nodded, "it looks like it."

"Damn it," Jean muttered. "This is what we get for trusting intelligence."

Sousuke squinted down at the mansion. "No one's shooting yet, and our people are being herded along with the rest, so they haven't been singled out yet."

Jean lowered his binoculars. "But the lights are out, so they know we're here," he observed. "It's just a matter of time before they start frisking people or just firing into the crowd."

For several moments, Sousuke considered their next move. Jose and Henrietta were waiting in the back of the jeep Mao, Hillshire, and Triela had arrived in, so they were close enough to move in, but even with Rico and Kurz on fire support Sousuke doubted the two would get very far into the mansion on their own.

"We're going to have to go in," he decided, turning to Jean for confirmation. When the older man nodded, Sousuke said, "Kurz, can you and Miss Rico cover all seven of us?"

Without looking up from his scope, Kurz said, "Of course, but that won't leave Rico with much to do."

Slapping a clip into his rifle, Sousuke muttered, "This is serious, Kurz. That's a big mansion, and a lot of people."

"We won't let you down, Mister Sousuke," Rico said brightly.

Jean tightened the straps on his bullet proof vest. "Normally, we don't like to separate frattello," he told Sousuke. "Rico, I'm counting on you."

The girl's eyes lit up. "I'll do my best, Jean!"

There was something… unhealthy about her zeal, in Sousuke's opinion, but he couldn't afford to spend time pondering it just then. He was determined to make sure that this mission didn't turn into a disaster.

"Let's move."

Continued…

Preread courtesy of Stahn Aileron and Alpha Zulu.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer – see part 1

Operation Icarus

By Random1377

Part 5 – Party Crashers

The mansion was a mess. It was a shame, Kurz thought as he surveyed the scene through the front door of the huge building. The explosion in the back had caused a stampede of partygoers to trample food into the normally manicured carpets, and several tables had been overturned in the rush, transforming the normally austere entryway into a slovenly conglomeration of flattened hors d'oeuvres and shattered dishes.

"Reminds me of my frat house," Kurz muttered under his breath, zooming his scope back out to do another sweep of the area. "Only with less drunk chicks."

"Looks like we're clear, Weber," Jose's voice crackled in his ear. "You and Rico make your way down here. I don't think you'll be much use on the far side of the house."

Kurz nodded to himself. _Makes sense,_ he thought reasonably, _can't snipe through the whole house, and the back is overlooking a cliff, so we can't really get a good line of sight from that side._

Rising to his feet, the sniper put his hands on the small of his back and stretched, rolling his head from side to side and groaning at the series of cracks and pops this action produced. "Getting old," he muttered. "Come on, Sunshine, let's get going."

Rico looked up from her scope, blinking as she echoed, "Sunshine…?"

"No good?" Kurz asked. "Sunspot? Sunny? Gotta be something with sun in it, though," he said, ruffling her blonde hair for a moment. "Sunflower?"

"Er…"

Kurz laughed at the look of confusion on the girl's face. "We'll work it out later, Sunshine," he said, scooping up his rifle and cradling it in his arms. "Time to get moving."

"Oh," Rico said belatedly, "o-ok."

_They really need to get these kids out of the house more often,_ Kurz mused as Rico hopped up and signaled that she was ready to go. _They're kinda… weird. _As they moved down towards the house, Kurz thought that Sousuke used to act like the Gunslinger girls. _Difference is,_ he thought, _he got involved with Mithril, and then Kaname. Kinda hard to be detached when SHE'S around._

Thinking of Kaname, and her current condition, brought Kurz down. It just didn't seem right to see someone so normally energetic and bubbly lying on a gurney in the medical section looking like a corpse. The medicos said that she was in a trancelike state, but that didn't make it seem better to Kurz, nor did the continued rapid eye movements she displayed, signaling that her brain was working. It just felt creepy, to him.

Add to that the lies they had told all of her friends about her being on an extended summer vacation and the whole situation left Kurz feeling unhappy and ever so slightly dirty. _At least it's not finals or something,_ he told himself. _If she got bad grades over something as silly as, oh, stopping a madman with her psychic powers, she'd be pissed._

He chuckled to himself as he pictured Kaname bashing Sousuke in the head with a paper fan for 'letting' her sleep through her tests.

"Is something funny, Mister Kurz?"

"Yes," Kurz shot back, "it's funny that you keep calling me 'Mister,' Sunshine." He came up short, halting their advance down the hill, and turned to face her, pointing at his lips. "Kurrrrrrz," he said, stretching the syllables as she stared blankly up at him. "Now you, ready? Kuuuuuuurrrrrz."

After a long moment of silence, Rico slowly smiled. "You're funny, Mister Kurz."

Kurz scowled.

"Now you're just doing it on purpose."

* * *

"This room's clear," Henrietta announced, ducking back out of the room in question and turning to Jose for further direction. "No one's here."

Jose nodded. "This one's clear too," he said, pointing with his gun to the room he had just finished checking. "Looks like everyone's out."

"Does that mean I can change out of this damn dress?" Melissa asked. "It's too damn tight." She whirled around as Kurz, who had just entered the room, started to open his mouth. "Not a damn word, Weber—not a damn word."

Kurz looked hurt. "Aww, don't be like that," he whined. "I was just going to offer to help you with your zipper, big sist-"

"Try zipping your mouth, dumbass," Melissa cut in, "and what have I told you about calling me that?"

Jean nodded as Rico stepped out from around Kurz and reported that the front of the building was clear too. "Alright," he said, "looks like most of us are here. Mister Sousuke is checking the second floor, and will meet us in the back."

All eyes turned to the last door in the room. "Weapons check," Melissa said, popping the cartridge out of her gun and checking the bullets before slapping it back into place.

"I would love to know where you hid that," Kurz said with a grin.

Melissa threw her handbag at him, hitting him squarely in the chest. "Purse," she snapped, "false bottom. Goddamn pervert."

Looking disappointed, Kurz checked his own weapon and reported that he too was ready to go. Everyone else followed suit, with Triela the last to comply. She had been forced to go in weaponless, though anyone who knew what she was capable of would argue that her mere existence counted as deadly force. She still gave Hillshire a grateful nod as he handed her a pistol, secretly wishing (like Melissa) that there was enough time to trade her frilly dress for something more practical.

"Let's go," Jean ordered, holding his own weapon at the ready and motioning for Rico to precede him through the door.

Stepping through, the small group found themselves in an almost stereotypical scene of mayhem and chaos. Sparks popped from sheared wires hanging halfway out of the ruined walls, and water sprayed sullenly from shattered pipes, flooding the entire room in an inch of water. Or rather, flooding the remains of the room, as eighty percent of what had clearly been the kitchen had been obliterated by the blast.

"Power's still on," Melissa observed. "Try not to get any body parts in any water… could be electrified."

Standard operating procedures called for insolated footwear on all combat missions—largely to protect against the very situation they were in—but footwear can't save you if you reach down to touch something that looks suspicious, or bump up against a saturated countertop that happens to have a loose wire brushing up against it.

"I can see the sky," Henrietta observed, glancing up at Jose with a happy smile. "That's Venus, right? Like you showed me?"

Jose nodded absently. "It is," he murmured absently, "Good eyes, 'Etta."

"Venus is a beautiful planet, isn't it?" a woman's voice inquired from the shadows. "Beautiful… mysterious… alluring—much like your intrepid associates here who so rudely 'crashed' my party tonight."

Every member of the small team trained their weapons on the sound of the voice, and in spite of the firepower aimed her way, a single woman with clear blue eyes and well-kept blonde hair stepped out of the shadows, looking for all the world like a proud hostess welcoming her latest party guests.

She appeared to be an even five feet tall, forcing her to look up at all of the adult team members, though she carried herself as if she was their superior in every other way but height. Her dress was a simple design, though obviously cut from expensive fabric. The only feature distracting from her otherwise regal appearance was the large, awkward looking backpack attached to her shoulders with two heavy looking straps.

"Gentlemen," she said coolly, "ladies. Good evening. I might have been offended by your unannounced arrival, had it not been me who all but engraved your invitation."

Kurz was on the verge of suggesting that they simply shoot the woman in the leg and take her back to the base for questioning when he noticed something odd. Though her feet were clad in nothing but elegant sling back shoes, she seemed unconcerned by the danger of electrocution, and as he watched, she stepped directly in a small pool of water where only moments before a loose wire had come to rest.

_Not good,_ he thought as a familiar, faint blue tinge flared around the woman's feet. _Oh this is not good at all…_ Inclining her head slightly as she caught Kurz's eyes, the woman gave a small bow.

"You may call me Persephone."

Kurz sighed, wondering if he should just tell everyone to put their guns down and surrender now or just play dumb. "What is it with you people and the code names?" he muttered deciding to go with sarcasm instead. "Honestly, what ever happened to calling yourself Lisa, or Janet?"

"Shiva liked to name things," the woman said dryly. "And considering all that he contributed to our cause, we let him. Of course, I doubt he grasped the irony of giving everything a Grecian name and then naming himself after a Hindu god, but I suppose that's neither here nor there."

"I still like Janet better," Kurz yawned, shaking his head as the rest of the team began to encircle the woman. "That won't do any good," the sniper informed them. "Where's Sousuke? He can explain the whole force field thing better than I can."

Hillshire's gun wavered a bit. "Force field?" he echoed, glancing uneasily at Jean. "Are we supposed to buy that?"

"You buy into girls with robotic body parts," Persephone pointed out. "I suppose it doesn't matter much what you believe in, though. All that matters is that you've seen what my organization is capable of. And since my only goal in waiting for you all was to introduce myself, I'll be on my way now."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that, ma'am."

Persephone glanced over her shoulder, smiling faintly as she found Sousuke dropping through the shattered ceiling from the room above, his assault rifle never losing its bead on the back of her neck. "Good tactics," she said approvingly. "Of course, if it had been me, I wouldn't have announced my presence. I would have simply opened fire."

Kurz waved a hand. "Oh, I'm sure he would have, if we were ordered to kill you," he said casually. "He's kind of tightly wound. But since we're supposed to take any potential information sources alive and all," he shrugged, "you know how it is."

"Military to the bone," Persephone said. "How boring. Well, as much as I'd love to stay and chat, I'm overdue for another appointment. So if you'll excuse me…"

Sousuke tensed, but Kurz immediately spoke up. "Don't—she has a Lambda Driver."

The woman smiled at the look of naked shock on Sousuke's face. "Come now, sir," she said playfully. "You didn't think that while Shiva was out causing havoc we were resting on our laurels, did you? There are agendas and deadlines, don't you know. Governments to overthrow. Power structures to change. The whole world is waiting with baited breath for a major player to take the stage—and that player is itching to get into the game."

"Do all megalomaniacs use weak analogies?" Jean asked disapprovingly. "As if we would simply let you go anyway. Force field or no force field, you're not going anywhere."

Holstering his gun, the blonde handler reached into his vest and extracted a small, innocuous looking cylinder. Grasping it in both hands, he held it out to show it to Persephone.

The woman arched an eyebrow. "An EMP flash grenade?" she mused. "Very creative solution. I suppose you think that since it's not force, the field around me won't be able to stop the pulse, and the circuits will be fried, thereby rendering it useless. Am I right?"

"Actually," Jean said grimly, "I just wanted to see how careless you were. _Now, Rico!_"

At his word, Rico exploded into action, kicking off the wall she had been standing next to and using Jean's back as a springboard as he dropped into a low crouch, hurling her body like a bullet directly at the very surprised looking Persephone. Instead of going in for the kill, however, the girl's hands sought and found the straps holding the lambda driver to the woman's back, latching on tightly as Rico planted her feet on Persephone's chest and began to pull.

"Get ba-"

Sousuke tried to warn the gunslinger girl as his ears picked up the telltale hum of the lambda driver engaging, but he was too late. With a bang, the girl flew back, slamming through the wall behind him and skidding into the darkness outside, vanishing in the gloom.

Persephone brushed the front of her dress with one hand.

"'Careless,'" she said calmly. "I think we see now who that word applies to."

Jean's eyes flicked to the hole in the wall, but he remained still, hands on the grenade as Persephone tugged at the front of her dress and made sure everything was in its proper place.

Squaring her shoulders, the woman turned to look at Sousuke. "Now you seem like an intelligent man," she said, ignoring everyone else in the room as she addressed him. "You and your handsome friend over there know what I'm capable of, correct?" When Sousuke nodded, Persephone said, "I'm going to leave now. I've accomplished everything I want to, here, so if you could deliver your superiors a message, I'd be inclined to letting all of you leave here with your lives."

Sousuke gritted his teeth, wishing quite badly that he had the Arbalest close at hand if for no other reason than to wipe the smug look off of the woman's face. "What's your message?" he asked flatly, keeping his gun barrel pointed at the woman's chest in spite of its uselessness.

Persephone smiled.

"Cerberus is on the move."

If the name was supposed to incite panic or fear, it failed spectacularly as the assembled SWA and Mithril agents all exchanged glances.

With a shrug, Kurz said, "Never heard of ya."

Sighing, Persephone rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. "It pains me that you're that stupid," she said tiredly. "I guess it's true what they say—you really _can't_ have looks and brains at the same time." Giving him a patient smile, she said, "This is what you might call a debut, eyecandy. Or if you prefer, an opening gambit. This is where-"

"You show the world your might and make us tremble in our boots," Kurz cut in, "demonstrating how powerful you are and proving that you're not a force to be trifled with, etc, etc, etc."

Persephone heaved another sigh. "You should go collect the body of your little friend," she said, turning back to Sousuke and pointing through the hole in the wall where Rico had vanished. "I suppose it would be just desserts to neglect telling you about the bomb in the basement, but then I wouldn't have anyone to deliver my message. It's 11:50, gentlemen, and not to sound _too _cliché about it, you have until midnight to get to a safe distance. Good night."

Turning on her heel, the woman walked through the shattered west wall of the building, gazing up at the moon as the assorted agents walked with her, tracking her every move.

"Mister Sousuke," Jean said as they walked, not bothering to lower his voice. "What are the chances that this grenade will make a difference?"

Sousuke shook his head. "Zero," he said grimly. "The easiest way to define what a lambda driver does is to say that it amplifies the user's will. She can't be hurt with anything we have."

Persephone glanced back over her shoulder. "It's so nice when someone finally sees reason," she mused. "Eight minutes to go. Trust me, you really should collect the body, if you want to bring it with."

"She's tougher than you think," Jean said flatly. "And just how were you planning to make _your_ escape?" he wondered. "The only thing west of here is a cliff with a hundred foot drop into the sea."

Grinning, the woman said, "I was waiting for someone to ask me that. I just can't resist the temptation to show off."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Persephone pushed a pair of buttons concealed under her dress… and in the blink of an eye, enormous, metallic wings sprang out of the small pack on her shoulders, telescoping seven feet in each direction and sending Triela and Melissa diving for cover as the tips nearly impaled them.

"There's a certain… synchronicity to all of this," the woman whispered, smiling at the looks of surprise all around her. "What a shame this is the Baltic rather than the Aegean."

"It doesn't matter," Melissa told her, rising to her feet and dusting off her dress. "The end result's going to be the same."

Persephone laughed. "I love it when people with no options try to talk tough," she said happily. "It makes their powerlessness that much more pathetic."

Melissa bared her teeth. "Let me get my hands on you for four seconds," she said coldly. "Then we'll see who's pathetic."

Persephone's smile wavered, but did not vanish completely. "You have seven minutes left," she murmured. "I'd suggest you start running."

Without another word, she crouched down and leapt up into the air, the massive wings on her back beating furiously as they carried up into the sky. Turning westward, she quickly reached the cliff and sailed over the edge, disappearing from sight and leaving the assembled agents staring after her with expressions of mingled disbelief and frustration.

"I'll give a hundred dollars to anyone that tells me this is a dream," Melissa grumbled. "One hundred dollars, cold, hard cash."

Kurz shook his head. "This is more like a bad trip than a dream," he said. "Dreams usually make _some_ sense."

"We should move out," Sousuke muttered. "It's six minutes to midnight."

With the grim reminder of their waning time, everyone began the retreat, moving quickly towards the shattered wall. "Communications lines are still jammed," Jean reported as they ran. "Sousuke, can you pick up Rico? I wasn't bluffing… this grenade is live."

Sousuke nodded, noticing that Jean's knuckles were white on the housing of the EMP grenade. _If he lets it go, we'll have three seconds, _he thought. _Better to get out of here and ditch it later than deal with two explosions—and who knows what that thing would do to one of the girls._

If there was more time, he may have questioned why the handler of a robotically enhanced girl would be carrying a device specifically designed to destroy circuitry.

Scrambling through the hole in the wall as his teammates made for the door, Sousuke immediately spotted Rico, her body twisted at an uncomfortable angle under a nearby sage bush. Keeping a mental count of the remaining time, he stooped down and hoisted her into his arms, amazed once again at the weight of the cyborgs.

Rico groaned, reflexively clutching at Sousuke's shoulder. "J-jean?" she coughed, blinking a trickle of blood out of her bleary eyes as he started to run. "Jean, I can't… I can't see."

"We'll fix you," Sousuke replied, noticing absently that while Rico was gripping him with all of her strength, it wasn't hurting him. "It's not a problem."

Whether Rico knew who was holding her or not, Sousuke wasn't sure. All he knew was that somehow, the gunslinger girl was no longer as powerful as she was before her encounter with Persephone.

All thoughts of system damage (or potential internal bleeding) were pushed to the side as the clock struck midnight and the mansion exploded, throwing everyone to the ground and sending a pillar of fire jetting into the sky, vaporizing any potential evidence that may have remained in the extravagant building.

* * *

Rico's body felt too heavy—so heavy, in fact, that she couldn't even lift her head. She felt and heard the explosion, but her eyes wouldn't register it, increasing her sense of panic and disconnection. She tightened her weak hold on the man holding her in his arms and doing his best to run.

It wasn't Jean, Rico could tell that much at least. She knew this because the smell was all wrong. She was no Beatrice, but she would know the smell of her handler anywhere in the world, even with the stink of ocean air and burning rubble assailing her nostrils. Regardless of who it was, the gunslinger girl held on for dear life, afraid that she would be dropped like the dead weight she had become as a single thought ran over and over through her disoriented mind.

_I can't move…_

_I can't move…_

_I can't move…_

_I can't move…_

It was the most terrifying thing she could imagine. Ever since being taken in by the Social Welfare Agency, the young girl had harbored the fear that one day her new limbs would stop responding, returning her to the state of helplessness in which she had led her entire life.

And now, that nightmare had become a reality.

"Jean," she croaked, turning her sightless eyes left and right in a vain search for her handler. "Where's Jean?"

"He's near," the man holding her said. "We're on the way to the extraction point."

Tilting her head towards the sound of the voice, Rico whispered, "Mister Sousuke? Is that you?"

She could almost see him, she thought, a faint blur among fainter blurs, but she couldn't recognize any features. It was all so dim. It felt like what she had heard dying was like—everything slowly going dark until finally… you just stopped existing.

If it wasn't for her conditioning, Rico would have been in a full blown state of panic.

_This hurts so bad,_ she thought as Sousuke confirmed that it was indeed him carrying her. _Jean… I want Jean!_

There was something else… something she was supposed to tell someone, but it was so hard to think through the pain.

"Is anything broken?" Sousuke was asking her, forcing her to focus. "Miss Rico, can you hear me?"

"I don't know," Rico reported, struggling to form the words. "Everything hurts. I can't… I can't tell."

She shivered as Sousuke tightened his hold on her, making up for her weakness with his strength. "We'll be at the extraction point in five minutes," he told her softly. "Don't fall asleep."

Rico nodded, understanding his concern immediately. While a concussion was unlikely considering her reinforced bone structure, damage to the brain _was_ still a possibility, and with her existing fears the chance that she was going close her eyes for longer than it took to blink was zero.

"Where's Jean?" she asked, wishing that she could hear her handler's voice at least once so she knew everything would be ok.

"We separated," Sousuke informed her. "Since he had to deactivate the EMP grenade, he hung back with a few of the others."

While she understood the reasoning for this, Rico still hated to hear it.

_Jean,_ she thought miserably. _Hurry… please hurry._

Sousuke was gentle enough with her, but Jean was Jean—and in her damaged state, Rico needed him more than she ever had.

Thinking of her handler jogged Rico's memory, and though she had trouble making out his face she still turned her eyes up to look in the direction of Sousuke's to make sure her words weren't lost.

"Transmitter."

She thought Sousuke might have stumbled a bit at this seeming non-sequitur, but he quickly regained his footing and asked, "What transmitter, Miss Rico?"

Thinking was even harder with the solider jostling her with every step, but Rico made herself relay the message, realizing its importance even though the haze of pain. "Put one on the girl," she said painstakingly, "to make sure we could find her."

Sousuke hesitated. "That would be a good idea," he said calmly. "But she isn't here anymore, Miss Rico."

Rico grimaced, half with pain, half with frustration, and groaned, "No, no, put one on her—_I _put one on her!"

"When did you…" Sousuke trailed off, realizing immediately that the damaged gunslinger girl must have done it when she jumped on Persephone's chest and tried to pull off her backpack.

"Plan B," Rico whispered, finding that speaking quietly made the pain slightly more bearable. "Always… have a plan B. Jean's idea. He's… so smart…"

She hung on to Sousuke as best she could, wishing he would stop turning in lazy circles as he ran. Blinking, she realized that her eyes had slipped closed without her realizing it, though opening them made very little difference other than showing her other patterns of swirling colors and shapes.

Conditioning aside, fear was strong in the girl's mind. "Mister Sousuke," she groaned. "Mister Sousuke, are we almost there?"

"Almost," Sousuke said grimly. "Hang on, Miss Rico."

"So tired," Rico whispered. "I just want to close my eyes for a second, ok?"

"Don't!" Sousuke warned. "Just talk to me. Don't close your eyes. Tell me something about yourself. Anything, it doesn't matter. Just keep talking."

"I don't know," the girl groaned. "I don't know… what to say."

Sousuke's reply was immediate. "Anything. Anything at all. Tell me about your room. Or your house. Tell me about Henrietta."

Rico smiled weakly. "Henrietta," she whispered. "She talked about you, Mister Sousuke. She said you… were really nice."

"What else?" Sousuke prompted. "What else did she say?"

"Mister Sousuke…?"

"Yes, Miss Rico?"

Though her eyes were still open, Rico found that she couldn't even make out the blur of the soldier's face anymore.

"Did I do a good job?"

"…yes," came the soft reply, "you did an outstanding job."

Rico's lips curled up in a faint smile.

"I'm glad…"

The smile lingered as she slowly laid her head on his shoulders and closed her eyes, slipping blissfully into the gathering darkness with his words of praise echoing in her ears.

_Hey,_ she thought as the last of her systems shut down, _it doesn't even hurt anymore…_

Continued…

Preread courtesy of Stahn Aileron and Alpha Zulu.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer – see part 1

Operation Icarus

By Random1377

Part 6 – Timeline

"Left side, no breath sounds…"

"Right side, breath sounds weak… definitely some fluid in the lungs…"

"Pulse is weak…"

"All systems offline… no response from any chips."

"Clear her mouth… we're going to have to intubate."

"Charge the paddles just in case… pulse is fluttering."

Sousuke knew the signs. The pulse would weaken. The breath sounds would cease. The pupils would fix in the dilated position. The muscles would seize. The bowels would release. Everyone present would feel the chill, unmistakable touch at the back of their necks as the thought, 'that could have been me,' inevitably flickered through their minds.

Death would take possession of His newest prize.

The young mercenary forced himself to keep his eyes on Rico's face. Though he doubted she knew he was there, he had long ago promised that he would never leave a comrade to die alone (as long as remaining by their side did not endanger their mission—he _was_ still a soldier after all).

"She's tougher than you think," Jean murmured, folding his arms and tapping his elbow with his fingertips. "Once they get her systems back online, she'll be just fine."

Kurz, who had been quietly watching the medics work, turned to look at Jean. "Her systems?" he said. "What about her lungs? What about her brain? What about her heart? You can't just… just turn those back on if they stop working, you know."

"Easy, Weber," Melissa advised, discretely positioning herself within arm's reach of Kurz in case he did anything stupid. "Let the medics work. Don't get in the way."

Waving her off, Kurz said, "I'm not in their way, but Joe Agent here is pissing me off with that attitude! What's your next line? She's a product? She's replaceable? She knew the risks? Which one's it gonna be?"

Jean's brow drew down, but he raised a hand as Jose opened his mouth, motioning for his brother to remain silent. "She _is_ a product," Jean said calmly, "she _is _replaceable, and she is _always_ aware of the risks in _any_ assignment we take on. Now, I realize it might be hard for an average grunt to understand—and yes, I am referring to you—but that 'little girl' behind you cost our government more to create than you make in a year. From a purely financial standpoint, I can guarantee that we will do everything in our power to ensure that she pulls through."

As Kurz reddened, Sousuke shot Jean a sideways glance. "I'm… sure you could have put that another way," he said carefully.

"Oh, I'm sure I could have," Jean acknowledged, "but I don't take kindly to heavy handed insults about the way I handle my team's welfare."

"Point taken," Melissa said, taking Kurz by the shoulder and forcing him to turn back around. "That's your cue to shut up, smart guy."

Kurz ground his teeth, but managed to keep himself to a muttered, "Prick," rather than his intended reply, which may very well have touched off an international incident.

In the ensuing silence, Hillshire cleared his throat. "The signal from the tracker is still coming in clear," he reported, holding up a small handheld computer. "We should start moving soon, or she'll be out of range."

"If she hasn't already pulled it off and dropped it on a passing boat," Kurz mumbled. "We should have followed her right away."

The consensus had been to allow Persephone some 'lead time' before giving chase to give her a false sense of security. Everyone agreed that by doing this, there would be less chance of the woman leading them to a phony location or fighting them in midair, resulting in more casualties. Another benefit to waiting was that the Arbalest could be sent via tactical missile, giving them some chance of fighting one Lambda driver with another.

However, as it had not yet arrived, and Persephone was getting further and further away, the general opinion was changing to one of immediate action.

"New plan," Jean announced, nodding curtly as one of the medics motioned to their waiting helicopter, indicating that they needed to move Rico to a more suitable location. "Hillshire, Triela, you two wait here with Sergeant Sagara—check the area, see if there's anything left after the blast that could give us a clue about what they were doing here. Mao, Weber, you and I will go with Jose and Henrietta and follow this Persephone woman to her base of operations. Let's move."

Clearly unable to stop himself, Kurz said, "What about her?"

Jean frowned, his eyes going almost unwillingly to where Rico was being loaded onto the waiting chopper. "She's in good hands."

Though Kurz scowled, a warning look from Melissa kept him from saying anything inflammatory. Without excusing himself, he walked over to Rico's side and slipped something small into her hand. After a moment's hesitation, he leaned down and whispered into her ear, his words easily drowned out by the thrum of the helicopter's engine.

When he returned to the group, Melissa pulled him aside. "What was that about?" she murmured, indicting the chopper with her eyes as it slowly began to rise into the air. "What did you give her?"

As the group made their preparations for departure, Kurz answered, "It's a nine millimeter round."

Melissa blinked. "Kind of a… strange present, isn't it?"

Kurz focused on gathering his gear. "You should know what it means," he said stiffly. When Melissa looked blank, he elaborated, "Always save one bullet—either for yourself or your enemy."

"Wasn't that from a movie?" Melissa wondered. "Still doesn't explain giving it to her, though."

Shrugging on his backpack, Kurz said, "I didn't watch out for her. I know the sound a lambda driver makes, and I didn't warn her in time. So if she wakes-" he cut himself off, "_when _she wakes up… you know what, I'm not gonna explain myself to you. Just forget it."

Melissa pursed her lips. "So, what? It's an invitation put it through your head?"

Kurz bristled. "No," he said tersely, "it's a promise, don't you get it? It means I'll get the bitch that did this to her no matter what!"

"Because you won't have a bullet to kill yourself with?"

"Exactly!"

For a moment, Melissa considered this. "You know," she said finally, "I'm not sure if that's retarded or romantic, Kurz… but I kind of think it's a little bit of both."

Flushing, the sniper found that he had no reply other than, "Um… thanks…?"

* * *

It took Sousuke and the others less than ten minutes to find the bunker in the hollowed out shell of the basement. From the looks of things, Hillshire deduced that it should have been blown to bits, but whoever calculated the force of the bomb that annihilated the house must have underestimated the strength of the little underground shelter, as it appeared to be entirely intact.

"They don't make them like that anymore," the agent murmured as he rapped on the solid steel door. "Triela—looks like a standard lock. Can you get it open?"

"A standard lock?" Triela asked. "On a door like this? Kinda like keeping a bomb together with chewing gum, isn't it?" Shrugging, she pulled out her lockpicking tools and knelt in front of the door. "Give me a couple minutes."

"I'm going to check this area over here," Hillshire said. "Let me know once the door's open."

"Yes sir."

Sousuke watched in silence, allowing Triela to concentrate as he pondered their current situation. _Too many factors,_ he mused, mentally counting them off. _Two agencies… an organization we've never heard of… black technology… two Whispered in comas… this operation has gotten far, far too complicated._

"Shouldn't those psychic people be coming out of the woodwork?" Triela asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. "I mean, when your girlfriend and your captain were fighting that guy, they said a bunch more like them were coming, but I haven't seen a single freaky eye color or anything. What gives?"

Sousuke considered this for a moment, then slowly said, "Perhaps they somehow felt the end of the battle and got scared. The captain and… Miss Chidori were incapacitated by the feedback, or whatever Adam's attack was, so…"

"So maybe they 'heard' it and went running for the hills," Triela mused, completing his thought. "That makes sense."

She stood up and tucked her lockpicks back into her belt, gesturing to the door with a flourish.

As Sousuke reached for the knob, Triela whispered, "It's 'Miss' Chidori, is it?"

Sousuke blinked. "Hmm?"

"Nothing."

* * *

"Full documentation on their projects? You're sure?"

Henrietta glanced at Jean as he continued to speak into his cell phone, pressing his free hand against his ear to drown out the sound of the helicopter.

"Agreed," the agent continued, looking to his brother to make sure he was getting at least one end of the conversation. "No, it's unlikely that they would just leave something like that lying around. We should treat it as a decoy, or at the very least, incomplete information deliberately placed to throw us off."

Jose waited patiently until his brother click the phone closed. "Red herring, huh?" he asked, using the mic on his headset to ensure that he was heard. "Do they honestly think we'll just take it at face value?"

Loosening his tie, Jean replied, "The papers indicate an alternate base located in Belgistan." He met his brother's eyes. "We'll be there in fifteen minutes, if we continue along the route we're on."

"Belgistan?" Mao said. "They're in the middle of a civil war, aren't they?"

"Of course, why wouldn't they be?" Jean muttered. "Half the planet is tearing itself apart. What's one more backwater country thrown into the mix?"

Kurz glanced out of the helicopter's side window. "Belgistan borders Helmajistan, doesn't it?" he mused out loud. "We're in Sousuke's back yard."

"That aside," Jose said, "we're going to have to move decisively. Whether it's false information or real, we can't just stop following this Persephone woman."

Jean and Kurz locked eyes.

"Agreed," Kurz muttered, mimicking Jean's calm timbre.

Folding his arms, Jean said, "We were expecting a trap anyway. Nothing has changed."

Clearly aiming for sarcasm (but missing due to the irritation in his tone) Kurz said, "Just out of curiosity, what _did_ the papers say? You know, just in case they actually held some vital information or something."

Unfazed by the man's attitude, Jean looked up at the helicopter's ceiling, putting his thoughts in order before speaking. "According to the papers, the device in question is codenamed Helios, named for the god of the sun," he said succinctly. "It's a portable Lambda Driver, powered by a miniaturized fusion reactor." He waited while the others exchanged uneasy glances, then concluded, "The documentation warns that the device is unstable, and could detonate if too much strain is placed on the reactor core."

"Great," Kurz snorted. "In other words: fire at your own risk."

Jose stroked his chin thoughtfully. "A warning or a bluff?" he wondered. "Either way it amounts to the same thing—it keeps us from trying to overwhelm her defenses to avoid a nuclear meltdown."

"Checkmate."

Mao chewed on her lip for a moment. "Well, more like stalemate," she said thoughtfully. "I mean, we have one too. If she makes a move, we'll just bring Sousuke along and the counter one Lambda Driver with another. She can't risk overloading hers, so we just lure her to an isolated area and stand on the sidelines until she blows herself to smithereens."

Nodding, Jean mused, "If the information we have is genuine. There are definitely too many unknown variables to make a conclusive strike unless we catch her without the device on her person."

"So we have to catch her with her pants down," Mao said, inclining her head towards Kurz. "You're up, Lieutenant."

Kurz shrugged. "If it's an order," he said airily. "You know how I love being under you."

"You _damn_ well better mean under my _command._"

"Uhh, sure."

Henrietta smiled as the two bared their teeth at each other in identical, fixed grins. "It's nice that you get along so well," she observed brightly. "I wouldn't mind being under either one of you."

Mao leveled a finger at Kurz and gave him her iciest, most threatening glare.

"Not a word, Weber—not a single damn word!"

* * *

The sickbay on the Tuatha de Danaan was staffed twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, with the only exception being an all-hands relocation due to a battle scenario (such as the one where Gaurin seized the vessel) or a full scale evacuation. All of the doctors on the submarine's staff were highly rated and had many years of combat experience, ensuring that they would not lose their heads should a firefight erupt or move into the sickbay.

Of course, they _were_ all human, and as such, when the machine monitoring Kaname Chidori's vital signs let out a few, quiet beeps at slightly past four in the morning, they were to fall on the deaf ears of the dozing doctor on call.

The beeps indicated a spike in brainwave activity—a blip, really—and were accompanied by a brief creasing of the high-schooler's brow as she drew in a sharp breath, appearing to be in the throes of a deep, disturbing dream.

When the doctor woke from his brief nap and checked the machine for any updates, the blip had already moved off screen. Having no reason to scroll back and check the time he was asleep, the man simply yawned and stretched, promising himself that he would get some decent rest as soon as he was off shift.

And the two women slept on… though not as deeply as before.

* * *

Greece in the summer. To anyone familiar with the area, what more could be said? The air in Athens was hot and heavy with moisture from the Aegean and Ionian, and to the Mithril and SWA agents the city was far too busy for their tastes. Too many civilians meant too many potential casualties—especially when the woman they were pursuing was holding the equivalent of a miniaturized thermonuclear warhead.

After following Persephone's signal for several days, they had ended up in Ioannina, just across the border from Albania. There, in a single-room shanty, they had found Rico's tracer used as a thumbtack to hold up a picture of Greece's Prime Minister. Written under the man's face was a note in flowing, flowery handwriting.

It read simply: _In five days, the world will know Cerberus's might._

That was two days ago.

"The plan is in motion," Jean informed the assembled agents, closing his cell phone and slipping it back into his pocket. He surveyed the team, pleased that he had their full attention. "The prime minister has agreed to our requests, and will be taking a tour of certain culturally significant landmarks over the next few weeks. On the day of 'Cerberus's' deadline, that will place him… here."

All eyes turned to the map as the agent indicated the spot.

"It has a certain ring to it, don't you think?" Kurz said, folding his arms and reclining against the windowsill of the small, open-air café they had chosen for their meeting. "It's almost like it was meant to be."

"It _was_ meant to be," Mao muttered, drinking in the map even as she shook her head in annoyance. "He's on this tour because we told him to be, and the stops aren't accidents—we planned them…idiot."

Sousuke finished studying the area on the map and nodded, looking up at Jean as he said, "It's the best choice available. It seems like something an elected official would do, and the location is remote enough to allow us excellent crowd control. Nice work."

Nodding with satisfaction, Jean said, "It would be better if we could lure her to Crete or Iraklio, but that would rouse too much suspicion."

"She'll be suspecting an ambush anyway," Triela pointed out. "Why not just get her where we really want her?"

Jose answered that, tapping the map with his finger as he spoke. "We can only push so far. The prime minister is giving his aid willingly enough, but if we ask for too much, he may start to balk… and we need him to give us his full cooperation."

"Or in other words," Kurz piped up, "we haven't told him the danger he's in, and we don't want him to get suspicious by dragging him out to the middle of the sea."

Shrugging, Jose said, "More or less."

They fell into silence, contemplating the intricacies of deceiving heads of state.

After a few moments of watching his gunslinger girl glancing at all of the other patrons, Jose said, "Would you like some ice cream, Henrietta?"

Henrietta sat up straighter in her seat, her cheeks tingeing pink as she stammered, "I-I'm alright, Jose. Thank you."

Smiling, Jose rose to his feet. "Come on," he said gently. "My treat."

"Yes, Jose…"

As they started off towards the counter, Triela abruptly stood and turned towards Sousuke. "Would you like one, Sergeant?"

"An… ice cream?" the young man asked, somewhat taken aback. "Umm, I'm alright, thank you."

Nodding, Triela stepped past him. "Right," she said decisively, "I'll get you a coffee, then."

Sousuke stared after her, baffled by the entire exchange.

"We need to talk timeline," Mao said, reversing her chair and straddling it to get more comfortable. "I've spoken with a few people in our intelligence group, and according to them… even with a handful of Whispereds in their division, it took some time to make a functional Lambda Driver. Now, up until this point, we've believed that Adam was operating on his own—but given the fact that this Persephone has a Lambda Driver, and the restored condition of the Daedalus…"

"It would be safe to assume that Adam was not the only Whispered in Cerberus's employ," Jean concluded. "Correct?"

Mao nodded. "Exactly, so… it's also safe to assume that she might have other black technology available to her."

Everyone glanced surreptitiously at the two gunslinger girls at the counter, the connection striking everyone at the table almost simultaneously.

"I suppose it's not much of a secret," Hillshire said, speaking up for the first time since the meeting began. "It's not like the components we use can be picked up at the local Radio Shack, after all."

Scratching her chin, Mao hummed, "The captain _did_ say something about your organization owing ours… kinda makes you think-"

Jean abruptly slapped the table, making Mao jump in surprise. "It's immaterial," he said flatly. "Let's stay focused on our current situation, shall we?"

At the counter, unaware that they were the topic of discussion, Triela and Henrietta made their selections. As they waited, Henrietta said, "Triela? Can I ask you something?"

Triela kept her eyes on the menu. "Not if it's about Mister Sousuke."

"O-oh, umm… then… do you like Greece?"

Sighing, Triela glanced at Jose, making sure that he was occupied with paying before whispering, "He reminds me of Hillshire in all the good ways. Don't ask me about it again, ok?"

Henrietta nodded vigorously. "Ok, I won't," she said quickly. "I won't, Triela."

The older girl rolled her shoulders and gave the brunette an apologetic smile. "Thanks," she murmured. "Someday… someday I'll tell you more, ok? Just not now."

"Ok."

As they returned to the table, they found the others discussing their plan to disseminate the information on the prime minister's visits. Everyone (Hillshire particularly) raised an eyebrow as Triela handed Sousuke a cup of coffee, very unsubtly brushing his fingertips with her own before retaking her seat.

Henrietta thought that she looked particularly proud of herself.

* * *

"I see… no, it's not a problem. Yes, I understand… alright then. We'll proceed as planned."

Jose looked up from his laptop as Sousuke replaced the phone on its cradle. "Your orders?" he asked, powering the machine down and stretching on the hotel bed as the younger man nodded. "Any surprises?"

"None," Sousuke said crisply. "Mao, Kurz, and myself will deploy at the designated location along with your team and a small contingent of Mithril agents. Once we have confirmation of the presence of a Lambda Driver, I will engage the target while everyone else falls back to a rear position."

"Sounds pretty basic to me."

Frowning, Sousuke said, "It always does… until the killing starts."

Both men glanced over to where Henrietta was dozing peacefully in one of the hotel chairs, her fingertips twitching occasionally as whatever dream she was having grew more vivid.

Jose clearly wanted to ask what the soldier's relationship really was with his gunslinger girl, but he surprised Sousuke by staying on the current topic. "Supposing the Lambda Driver Persephone has does overload," he said quietly. "Will your… robot survive the blast?"

Sousuke shrugged. "The Arbalest is a bit more than your average arm-slave," he said carefully, "but honestly, I don't know if a Lambda Driver can withstand a point blank nuclear explosion—even on a small scale."

"And yet, you'll still face her."

"I will."

"I see."

Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Sousuke waited for the other man to ask if he was scared, or if he was willing to sacrifice his own life for people he barely knew. He was pleased when Jose said neither, choosing instead to slide off the bed and walk over to Henrietta, draping his suit coat over the sleeping girl's shoulders.

He liked Jose and the other members of his organization. They were what Sousuke classified as 'men of action.' None of them would stand in his way if he said that he planned to single-handedly take on a group of terrorists holding a school bus hostage, and all of them (he was certain) would offer to cover his back—even Jean, who had all of the personal warmth of a sheet of ice, would lay down his life to protect those who were unable to protect themselves.

In short, they were Sousuke's kind of people.

As if to confirm his line of thought, Jose said, "I recognize that there are certain restrictions on what I can do, what with you being the only person with a Lambda Driver… but until we reach the point where it becomes your fight, I'll be behind you one hundred percent, and I assume you know the same goes for Henrietta."

Sousuke nodded, but before he could speak, Jose added one more thought.

And in hindsight, Sousuke really should have seen it coming.

"But if she ends up hurt because of you… you will answer… to me."

With a quick salute, and absolutely no smile on his face, Sousuke whispered, "I expect nothing less."

To be concluded…

Author notes: I know this chapter is a little skimpier than the last, but the next one is going to be kind of a doozy. Look for it soon!

Preread courtesy of Stahn Aileron and Alpha Zulu yet again. Thanks!


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer – see part 1

Operation Icarus

By Random1377

Part 7 – Circling the Sun

It was fitting, Jose thought, that they should finishing things here.

Some revisionist party or other was working on recreating the Theater of Dionysus of Athens on the outskirts of the town (outside of the area protected by the national landmark act of course) and adding pillars around the main stage, regardless of the fact that doing so would have blocked the view of a good percentage of the crowd.

_Some people have no appreciation for history._

Checking the magazine in his pistol one more time, the agent glanced around at the foliage, trying to pick out the soldiers hidden within. He nodded in satisfaction as he managed to spot the five that were _supposed_ to be spotted (Persephone would be suspicious if the prime minister had _no_ protection) and none of the ones that were not.

The plan was simple: lure Persephone to the very outskirts of Greece and let Sousuke do his thing. With the prime minister already safely on a plane back to Athens, and Hillshire made up to look like him, the only people in harm's way were the collected agents of the Social Welfare Agency and Mithril.

_But that's what we do,_ Jose reminded himself, tensing slightly as he caught sight of movement further back in the tree line. _It's the reason both of our groups exist._

Without any concern or regard for her surroundings, Persephone stepped into the clearing, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she walked and smiling faintly to herself as if she hadn't a care in the world.

She did look regal, Jose decided as the woman strode out into the middle of the clearing. With her wings unfolded and her body decked out in an elegant silver-white dress, she looked as if she would be equally at home at a dinner party or lavish soiree with crystal goblets and people that sweat money rather that perspiration.

Even her silver combat boots were fashionable and eye-catching, though the agent secretly wondered if maybe the woman was carrying things a little too far with the diamond necklace.

_Is she here to kill the prime minister,_ he wondered, _or invite him to a fundraiser?_

The group dispersing on the far side of the clearing was no laughing matter, however, and from where Jose was standing he figured Persephone had brought at least seventy men with her. It wasn't going to be an easy battle.

"Come out, come out wherever you are," the woman called, stopping in the middle of the clearing and glancing around at the forest with a slight frown. "Let's not play games, shall we? We're losing the sunlight."

"Better watch it," Kurz said, breaking cover and walking out towards Persephone with his sniper rifle slung non-threateningly over his shoulder. "Remember what happened to Icarus when he got too close to the sun."

"Ahh the eye-candy," the woman said brightly. "I was wondering when I might get to see your pretty face again."

Gesturing for the others to stay back, Kurz walked boldly up to the woman. "Nice to see you too," he said with a wave. "Still sporting the wings, I see. You know, you really should consider something a little more subdued. Most women these days prefer a shawl or little sweater, you know? It's… I hate to say it, but it's kind of a fashion faux pas."

"I call them The Wings of Hermes," Persephone said grandly, spreading the silvery wings high up into the air. "Hermes was the messenger of the gods… deliverer of good tidings and news of war alike. It's fitting, don't you think?"

Kurz rolled his eyes. "Again with the codenames," he muttered. "You _do_ know that Hermes had his wings on his _shoes_ right? I would have gone with Nike, myself—same pantheon, and she actually had wings on her _back_."

Persephone's smile grew rather rigid. "Well aren't we just the little fountain of knowledge," she said icily. Glancing around the clearing, she sighed. "I suppose this is all some elaborate trap, then?" she said casually. "No prime minister? No cameras to report my triumph? It doesn't really matter, you know… I was rather hoping to destroy the man in a more public place anyway."

Grinning, Kurz said, "This is where I give you the obligatory, 'you'll have to get through us first' bit."

With a shrug, Persephone folded her wings. "And so it goes."

They sized each other up for a moment… and the forest erupted with gunfire.

"She's heading towards the stage," Kurz shouted, making a break for cover as the woman simply turned and walked away, ignoring the whizzing bullets all around her. "I'm going after her!"

"Too dangerous," Mao yelled, firing a three round burst in the direction of a group of Persephone's men. "Wait for backup!"

Kurz shook his head. "No can do, big sister," he said jauntily. "She'll get away if we don't pin her down. See you over there."

"Weber—damn it, _wait!_"

"He's right," Jean said grimly. "If we let her go now, who knows when she'll surface again. We need to end this." Glancing around the clearing, he took stock of his options, noting the position of each player before deciding on his course of action. "Sergeant Sagara," he said firmly, "Take Triela and Henrietta and watch Weber's back. We'll handle this bunch here."

Sousuke glanced at Mao for confirmation, nodding as she gave him a quick thumbs-up. "Understood. Miss Triela, Henrietta… let's go."

* * *

The island wasn't all that big—maybe a hundred and fifty miles across at its widest point—and the city they were in (or to be more specific, the ruins they were in) only took up a small portion of that space, amounting to less than one fifteenth of the total topographical area of the island.

Of course, when you were running from one end of the city to the other, it felt a lot bigger than it was.

"How did she get so far ahead of us?" Triela complained, dodging around a tree and firing a shot blindly behind her to deter the handful of Persephone's men who had chosen to pursue them. "She's not that much taller than me! We should have caught her by now."

Glancing briefly over his shoulder to see how many men were behind them, Sousuke said, "I'm sure she wasn't ducking when she ran… or avoiding branches. She probably took the path."

Triela pursed her lips. "Good point."

"Ow!" Henrietta cried. "I just got hit!"

Without stopping, Sousuke muttered, "We'll never catch up to her at this rate…"

Veering around another tree, the solider made his decision.

"Henrietta," he said quietly, "please take care of them for us."

He did not turn to see her expression, afraid that he would find her hurt or disappointed at being left behind… but he forgot that the gunslinger girl was a professional as well.

"Alright, Sousuke," she said brightly, "just leave it to me!"

Without another word, she stopped and turned on the spot, opening fire with her P90 and sending at least two men to their graves as she took them completely off guard.

"She'll be fine," Triela said, catching Sousuke's arm as he unconsciously slowed down. "Come on."

"Right."

The two of them ran on, leaving Henrietta to deal with their pursuers.

As they neared the newly constructed but appropriately authentic 'ruins' of the theatre, Triela edged into the lead. "Stay back," she said bluntly, "I can take more hits than you."

"You-"

"Don't argue—this isn't the time for chivalrous crap."

Sousuke, who spent every day with Kaname Chidori, knew better than to argue with this tone of voice, and instead chose to observe, "We should approach from the left and use one of the columns for cover."

"Got it."

They hit the column within a half second of each other, Triela first, Sousuke second, and immediately put their backs to it, sweeping the area for any lingering troops. As they did this, Persephone's voice boomed from the stage behind them, calling out a playful, merry greeting.

"So nice of you two to join me. Come over here, won't you? I have something to show you, and this little item… I'm particularly proud of."

"Mirror," Sousuke whispered, handing Triela the small pocket mirror he carried in his vest pocket. "What do you see?"

Angling for a better look, Triela whispered back, "They're on the stage. Main target… five guards… all armored."

Persephone sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you about it from here," she said, clearly annoyed. "But only because I'm in a good mood. My associates here are wearing the newest, most efficient armor available to man—with my own personal modifications, of course. It is lightweight, completely bulletproof, and available in camouflage, black, and desert colors… and we'll have white available soon, for those snowy days."

Triela shook her head in wonder. "She really _is_ insane!"

"From what you can see… is she lying?" Sousuke whispered. "Any weak spots?"

Taking another look in the mirror, Triela murmured, "The joints aren't that well protected. I think a direct shot there would-"

"If you're considering the joints," Persephone said abruptly, "you're right, they are a bit soft… but once every unit is fitted with its own Lambda Driver, that will be immaterial."

Sousuke and Triela exchanged a wide-eyed look as the true scope of the woman's plans became clear.

Clearly pleased with herself, Persephone continued, "Imagine it—a single trooper marching into a war zone and destroying all opposition without receiving a single scratch… and should he be overwhelmed, well, I think you read the information I left you on these devices, correct? There's a reason I've chosen to call them Spartans, and no, it isn't because of that movie."

Triela closed her eyes. "It's now or never, Sousuke," she said, handing him his mirror back and reaching up to tie her hair into a single ponytail as Persephone laughingly told them how the world would soon know the true might of Cerberus. "Go get your robot."

"What are you planning to do?"

Checking the magazine on her Sig, the gunslinger girl grimly replied, "I'll be buying you some time."

Before Sousuke could say anything further, the blonde broke cover, racing for the next pillar and popping off four shots as she went, giving Persephone's guards second thoughts about pursuing her. She was hit by at least two rounds that Sousuke could see, but she never missed a step, diving into the shadows and rolling immediately into a sitting position.

"_Go!_" she screamed, reaching into one of the oversized pockets on her jacket and coming up with two hand grenades.

As she pulled the pin on one and lobbed it into the middle of the circle, Sousuke took off, praying that she would be ok as the explosive kept their attackers' attention off of him for a moment.

"Fire in the hole!"

Sousuke dared not look back as Triela let off two more rounds, at least one of them finding its mark as a strangled cry and a heavy thud immediately followed the sound of the shots. _Move, move, move,_ he told himself, hurling himself into the underbrush as the hand grenade roared behind him.

Distractedly, he wondered if the blast from an M67 would really do anything to those armored suits.

_Maybe if she's lucky,_ he thought. _She managed prove her theory on the joints with her gun._

Unfortunately, he knew this was skewed thinking. It was one thing to place a shot into a confined area with a pistol designed for just such a task, but hand grenades were not exactly designed for precision work. What Triela had been banking on (successfully in her case) was that the soldiers, in spite of their advanced armor, would still hesitate when faced with a familiar device of massive collateral damage.

"But they won't stay intimidated," Sousuke muttered, forcing his legs to work harder as he raced towards the Arbalest. "The most she's bought is a minute, maybe two."

As if to confirm this thought, the sound of automatic gunfire tore through the night behind him. In his mind's eye, he could picture Triela crouching behind the pillar, blood pouring from the hits she had sustained as she blindly fired around the corner, desperately trying to hold back the tide that threatened to sweep her away.

He knew, for a fact, that she would not last very long.

* * *

"Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm."

Humming under her breath, Triela ejected the spent magazine from her Sig, slotting another one with practiced ease as bullets continued to pepper her refuge. Had she been able to read Sousuke's mind, she might have been surprised at how accurately he had envisioned her situation.

"Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm-hm, hmmm."

Raising one finger in the air, the gunslinger girl closed her eyes, catching the thread of her humming and adding the lyrics as she pictured herself leading an orchestra.

"Wir betreten feuertrunken," she sang, bobbing her head to the music and jamming her gun to the right as one of the soldiers made the mistake of getting too close. "Himmlische, dein Heiligtum."

The soldier fell back quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid catching a bullet to the front of his faceplate, and while it ricocheted off it was still enough to give Triela a few more moments to sing.

"Deine Zauber binden wieder was der Mode Schwert geteilt Bettler werden Fuerstenbrueder Wo dein sanfter Fluegel weilt!"

Silence fell as she trailed off, eyes closed and waiting for the inevitable moment when the soldiers realized that with four of them and only one of her, all they had to do was rush in and overwhelm her.

_Maybe I can get two,_ she thought, controlling her breathing and listening closely for any sound of movement from the other side of the pillar. _Throat shot… throat shot… two down,_ she envisioned the rounds finding their marks… saw the bodies hit the ground… breathed deep… smelled the cordite. _Two._ _Yeah, I can get two of them for you, Sousuke. I'll have to leave the rest to you, though. Sorry._

Tensing herself for movement, Triela immediately froze as the sound of soft, appreciative clapping filled the air.

"Beautiful," Persephone whispered, her voice carrying easily in the stillness of the evening. "Simply beautiful, miss."

Unwilling to be distracted, Triela whirled around the pillar and leveled her gun, her eyes raking the terrain for her targets… but the only person visible was the lunatic with the wings.

"Damn it," she muttered, quickly looking to her right just in time to see a heavy fist rushing towards her jaw.

She fell hard, her gun spinning from her fingers as a boot connected with her gut, driving the air from her lungs.

_Damn they're quiet! Damn it, damn it, damn it!_

"Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" Persephone sang, picking up where Triela had left off as her Spartans pummeled the gunslinger girl with a hail of brutal, bone jarring punches. "Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt! Brueder - ueber'm Sternenzelt Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen. Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen, Eines Freundes Freund zu sein, Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, Mische seinen Jubel ein!"

She ended with her arms wide, head thrown back to the indifferent stars, seemingly oblivious to the increasingly wet sounds coming from the beating only a few feet away from her.

Slowly, she lowered her arms to her sides. "Enough."

Crooking one finger, she beckoned the soldiers to bring Triela over to her, smiling faintly as the blond lolled in their arms, her eyes fluttering as she held tenuously to consciousness. Blood dripped freely from her mouth, though obviously, the gunslinger's teeth were reinforced with the same method as the rest of her bones, since all of them seemed intact—brilliant, unscathed white under deepest, darkest crimson.

"I love that song," the woman sighed. "So beautiful."

Forcing her eyes to focus on the older woman, Triela panted, "G-go to hell…!"

Persephone smiled gently. "It's called Hades in Greek mythology," she corrected. "And I've already been there."

Without breaking eye contact, she gestured for one of the Spartans to hand her a gun. Once supplied, she pressed the weapon up against Triela's stomach and pulled the trigger five times, watching closely as the gunslinger girl's body jerked, her face contorting with pain.

"So resilient," she said happily. "But I'll bet that still hurt, little miss."

"Sc…rew… you…!"

Smiling, Persephone emptied the magazine into Triela's gut, nodding to herself as the final two rounds drew a wretched cry of agony from the blonde's bloodied lips.

"Everyone has their limits," she said, handing the empty gun back to its owner. "Now at least, I know yours." She gestured for the Spartans to release the girl, watching as the blonde fell to the stony ground and immediately wrapped her arms around her stomach, moaning in pain. "Oh do shut up," she muttered, sounding terribly bored with the situation. "I could have put those into your head, you know. At this range, I doubt it matters how much additional hardening they've added to your design, at least one would have gone through."

Her smile faded slightly as Triela began to laugh. "Is… that all you've got…?" the gunslinger girl croaked, forcing herself up into a half-crouch, though doing so brought the barrels of four Spartan rifles to bear on her skull. "I'll still… k-kill you…"

Persephone threw her head back and laughed as Triela glared up at her. "I think not," she said briskly. "To be honest, I was keeping you alive in the hopes that hurting you would bring your boyfriend the soldier out of hiding. Since that has failed, I see no reason to prolong your agony." Patting Triela on the head, she gazed down into the blonde's eyes. "Goodbye."

Triela never looked away from her, the blood on her face giving her rictus a devilish quality as a single shot rang out, echoing around the stone theatre and signaling the end of her life. When the light did not leave her eyes, Persephone frowned, wondering exactly how thick they had made the girl's skull.

"Get _dow-_"

The Spartan on Triela's left never finished his warning, dropping to the ground as the Spartan on her right (the real victim of the gunshot) sagged down on top of the blonde, his body twitching as his mind finally caught up to the fact that he was dead.

"Perfect," Persephone growled, taking a step back as two more quick shots destroyed the remainder of her forces. "Just perfect!"

Turning away from the decimated Spartans, the woman ran towards the far side of the stage, unfurling her wings to their fullest as she went… but a final shot rang out, hitting the uppermost joint of her right wing with the 'spang' of metal on metal and causing the shining feathers to flop limply onto her shoulder.

She skidded to a halt, horrified at the sight of her clipped wing. "No," she raged, "no, no, no! The Lambda Driver! Why… why didn't it work?"

Turning around, she looked for Triela, some half-formed idea of using her as a human shield flitting through her mind, but the blonde was no longer alone. At her side was the small brunette Persephone recognized from the mansion, holding Triela with one arm as she used the other to level a compact assault rifle at Persephone's chest.

"Try it!" she said, her voice bordering on hysteria as she reviewed her options. "I dare you!"

The young woman said nothing, continuing to train her gun on Persephone. After a moment of silence, an all too familiar sound reached her, making her blood run cold.

It was the sound of an arm slave tromping through the forest.

"No," she sobbed, tears springing to her eyes as the Arbalest slowly materialized out of the woods. "No, this can't be happening! _This can't be happening!_"

"Persephone of Cerberus," Sousuke's voice boomed from the external speakers. "Deactivate your Lambda Driver and step forward with your hands held in front of you. Failure to comply will result in immediate-"

"Immediate _what_ you sanctimonious _prick?_"

The Arbalest came to a sudden, rather shocked stop at the edge of the stone stage.

Persephone stared up at it with defiant, maniacal eyes, rising to her full height as she confronted the behemoth. "Shoot!" she taunted. "Go ahead! Let's see whose Driver is more powerful! Let's see if your friends can survive a nuclear meltdown! Make your move, if you're so confident, but I'll be _damned_ if I'm going to just surrender to _you_!"

When the Arbalest continued to remain still, Persephone gained confidence. "I can blow it any time I want, you know," she said moving back to the center of the stage as the mecha's head turned to follow her. "Persephone became the ruler of the underworld," she said boldly, "you know what that means? It means I've already been through hell—death is _nothing_ to me!"

"I thought you said it was Hades."

Persephone whirled around as Kurz dropped from his position on top of the southernmost pillar, brushing some dust off of his stomach as he let his rifle hang loose at his side.

"That's what you told Triela, right?" he asked lightly. "I gotta say, I didn't know I was talking to the ruler of the whole underworld. Cerberus is your dog, right? One head was a lion, one was a goat, one was a dog, something like that right? I've been looking some of this stuff up—you know, in my free time—but I gotta say, after a lot of thought, and the way you just keep going, the way I figure it… it wasn't Adam who thought up most of this crazy shit…" he stopped several feet away from Persephone, grinning from ear to ear as he leveled one finger at her. "It was you."

Before she could speak, the sniper filled in the final piece of the puzzle.

"Am I right…Eve?"

Persephone jerked back as if she had been slapped.

"Eve?" Sousuke asked, his voice sounding confused. "I was told that Eve was dead."

"Well," Persephone whispered, her voice so flat and toneless that Henrietta immediately positioned herself in front of Triela, "you don't get to Hades by plane."

In two strides, she was in front of Kurz, spinning on the spot as he started to bring his rifle up and catching him in the side of the head with her broken wing. He cried out, stumbling as Persephone continued to move, ending up behind him and sliding her hand over his, forcing his rifle up with surprising strength and putting a round of the high-caliber armor-piercing ammunition through Henrietta's chest.

As the brunette fell, Persephone reached into her boot and pulled out a short survival knife, burying it in Kurz's shoulder blade and giving him a sharp kick to the small of the back, sending him to the ground, his head striking a rock as he went down and knocking him completely unconscious. Stillness returned to the stage as she gazed up at the Arbalest, watching it with the same amount of concern as a tiger watching a housecat.

Sousuke was the only one left in any condition to notice as she slowly brought her thumb up to her mouth and began to bite it.

"Have you ever been through hell?"

Unsure of how to reply to the woman's question, Sousuke said nothing.

"Can you imagine," Persephone wondered, "being driven to the point of tying a rope around your throat and hanging yourself from a tree branch… only to wake up in a shallow grave, naked and violated by your 'buriers' and watching as they slowly shoveled dirt down on top of you?"

"I'm sor-"

"Save your pathetic sympathy," the woman cut in as Sousuke tried to speak. "It's meaningless to me. I remembered you, of course… how could I not? My salvation… my damnation. You saved me from being murdered… and delivered me into the hands of my new tormentors. Adam… poor Adam didn't even recognize me when I found him eating roaches in the forest and babbling about man challenging the gods. I picked him up and gave him purpose—my purpose… to burn it all down. To burn down the world that had made us what we were. To punish those who had-"

"What… what a load of _crap!_" Triela interrupted, cradling Henrietta's head in her lap as she glared up at Persephone. "The world didn't single you out, you psycho. You might have gotten a bad hand, but that's life—deal with it. God, why is it that I have to sit here and listen to you whining about how much your life sucked? Pick yourself up, for the love of God, and shut… the hell… _up!_"

Persephone's face turned into a rictus of hate. "Aren't you one to talk?" she sneered. "Raped, tortured, run down by your own parents—I've heard all of your stories. Your lives are just as pointless and screwed up as mine, and-"

"Yeah," Triela snapped, "and we get past it and go on, but nooo, not you! You just have to make the world burn. Well guess what? You don't affect _shit,_ you know that? Kill the prime minister! Kill the president! Kill the king! Kill the guy in the parking lot who had the _nerve_ to whistle when you walked by, and a hundred—a _thousand_ will take their place! That's what Miss Kaname was trying to say. It's not Whispered, it's _people_. We keep coming. We're unstoppable. You?" she snorted, gently brushing some of the hair out of Henrietta's face.

"You're just another loony with a god complex."

To Triela's surprise, Persephone simply smiled. "I should be god to you, little miss," she said warmly. "Who do you think invented that wonderful body of yours…? Oh yes! You didn't honestly think your organizations would simply let me sit idle in my madness, did you? They used me, just like they used you." Holding her arms out to her sides in a wide, 'come here' gesture, the woman gazed down into Triela's stunned eyes. "Of course, if 'god' is too formal, you can always call me… mother."

Based on the exchange, Sousuke had assumed that Persephone would be the first to break, as several of Triela's remarks had clearly hit home, so it came as a great surprise to him that the next person to act was the one with a bloody hole through the middle of her chest.

From the Arbalest, the soldier could only watch in amazement as Henrietta's eyes snapped open and the gunslinger girl rolled over onto her stomach, coming up on all fours and ignoring the blood pouring from her wound as she stalked forward, every muscle in her body screaming 'animal' as her gaze focused on the bemused Persephone.

"Oh my," the woman laughed. "It seems this one has lost it completely."

She did not understand the danger she was in, but Sousuke did. He had seen many, many soldiers lose their minds in his time, and they all had the same, glassy-eyed stare Henrietta wore at that very moment. He knew that Persephone had her Lambda Driver at full power (the energy readings coming from her backpack were almost off the charts), but he still found himself wondering if he should intervene on her behalf.

Because from where he was sitting, she didn't stand a chance.

Henrietta came forward silently, on hands and knees like an animal… and Persephone laughed, holding her stomach in mirth as she gasped, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty! What… what are you thinking, little girl? Are you t-trying to get me to laugh to death?"

Sousuke knew that she wasn't thinking at all—there was nothing of Henrietta in that vacant expression, no trace of the girl who had shared his body warmth and been so pleased when he used her first time. All he saw was a predator, and in a moment of understanding, he knew exactly what made this so dangerous.

"Miss Persephone," he said, "I believe you should-"

"Shut up," Persephone laughed, turning to the Arbalest and waving at it like an annoying pest. "My 'daughter' is playing kitty. Don't inter-"

And Henrietta was on her.

It was the Lambda Driver, Sousuke realized. It was both the greatest weapon imaginable, and the greatest weakness, if you understood the way it worked. Kurz had described it, very accurately, as a way to make the wielder's will manifest. What Kurz hadn't known, or failed to understand, was that when it generated a force field to protect its owner, the Lambda Driver did so based on the owner's desire to keep on living, so even if an attack came from an unexpected angle, the Lambda Driver would repel it based on the owner's subconscious will to survive.

The Achilles heel to the entire design, of course, is that if the owner sees an attack coming, but doesn't see it _as_ an attack, the Lambda Driver won't react until the owner realizes what's happening, which is why Kurz had been able to take out her wing… and why Henrietta had been able to grab onto her backpack straps (the same ones Rico had used to plant the transmitter) and get her face close to the woman's throat.

"Wha-ah…_ahh!"_

Persephone's grunt of surprise turned into a scream of pain, her Lambda Driver activating and blasting Henrietta back as she finally understood the danger the gunslinger girl presented. By then, however, it was too late.

Henrietta flew back, her eyes rolling up in her head as her systems were kicked offline by the impromptu, pointblank EMP. Falling from her teeth as she collided with one of the stone pillars was a single, solitary chunk of flesh.

Sadly for Persephone, it was the chunk that had formerly protected her jugular vein.

"_Hk_… _hk_…"

Sousuke brought the Arbalest down onto its hands and knees, popping the hatch open fast as Persephone slowly sank to her knees, blood pouring between her fingers as she clutched at her throat. Mentally, he counted down the seconds it would take her to bleed out. From the size of the chunk Henrietta tore out of the woman, it wasn't long.

"Hang on," he called, grabbing the first aid kit stored in the cockpit and jumping down onto the hard ground. "Miss Persephone, hang on!"

The woman gurgled wetly, indicating that Henrietta's bite had also lacerated her windpipe, increasing the risk from bleed out to bleed out and drowning as blood began to pour down into her lungs.

_I'll have to compress it,_ Sousuke thought, mentally listing the steps he would need to take. _Stop the bleeding first… then… then I'll have to crush her throat just below the injury and perform an emergency tracheotomy below the crush point to keep any more blood from getting in._

He estimated that he was at her side twenty seconds after the wound was inflicted, but no matter how he tried to get to it, Persephone's flailing kept him away. "Miss Persephone!" he cried, trying to get her attention. "I'm trying to help you. Let me… please, let me see it!"

"Hk…! Hk…!"

If she was trying to say something, Sousuke could not fathom what—nor did it truly matter. All he was interested in was saving her life.

Her diamonds sparkled like ice chips in a sea of red, dazzling in their brilliance as her life's blood poured in a tidal wave around them.

"Why are you trying so hard?"

Looking up, Sousuke found Triela standing over the two of them, clutching her belly with both hands as she watched him try once again to get Persephone's hands away from her throat.

Sousuke's brow furrowed slightly as he replied, "I can't just watch her die."

Triela tilted her head to one side. "Why?"

Drawing a deep breath, Sousuke tried to collect his thoughts. "Because too many people have died today," he said quietly. "Or because I can't stand death, if I can stop it. Sometimes, because I do what I do, I have to kill people… but if there's a way I can achieve my goals without taking life, I prefer it."

He expected some further recrimination—maybe a 'Why don't you help me instead?' or possibly, 'She had it coming.'

Instead, Triela knelt across from him on Persephone's other side and whispered, "Can I help?"

Sousuke nearly collapsed with gratitude. "Hold her arms," he instructed. "Don't worry about the Lambda Driver… I deactivated it just now."

Persephone's eyes bugged out at this revelation, and she thrashed even harder, her eyes filled with murder as she continued to make her frantic, choking cry.

"Got it," Triela said evenly, grabbing the woman's hands and holding them effortlessly in spite of the damage inflicted to her own body. "I hope you live a long, healthy life," the blonde said as she looked down into the older woman's eyes. "Honestly, I do."

"Hk…! Hk…! HK!"

Feverishly, Sousuke worked to stop the flow of blood, repositioning himself as Persephone's left leg began kicking aimlessly in his direction. Sweat was prominent on his forehead as he pressed the wound, but no matter how he tried, it continued to leak around his fingers, soaking everything he tried to use to block the flow.

Slowly, Persephone's thrashing grew less frantic. "Hk… hk… hk… hk…"

"Hold the wound for me," Sousuke panted. "I've got to get an airway open, then we'll give her a shot of morphine for the pain."

He reached for the first aid kit, but a gentle hand on his shoulder made him pause. "It doesn't matter now," Triela told him quietly. "She can't feel it anymore."

Turned back to face her, Sousuke found that Persephone's eyes were wide and fixed as she stared up at him, her face still twisted in the smile she had worn when she thought Henrietta was not a threat—the smile that had, in a very real way, killed her.

"I see…"

Gently, especially considering what the woman had done to her, Triela closed Persephone's eyes. "She's heading home," the gunslinger girl murmured. "Back to the underworld to rule her loyal subjects."

Sousuke gave her a hard look, sure that she was being sarcastic… but Triela was solemn and unsmiling. "I suppose she is," he said finally, picking up the first aid kit and rising to his feet. "Come on," he said quietly, "give me a hand before Kurz and Henrietta follow her…"

* * *

They spent some time recuperating in Naples. Since it was the Social Welfare Agency's back yard, Kurz, Mao, and Sousuke entrusted themselves to the organization's care. Tessa and Kaname, they learned, had awoken the second Eve had stopped breathing, and while they were still a bit… off (according to the report Sousuke had received) they were doing well and looking forward to visiting as soon as Mithril finished mopping up the remains of Eve's forces.

Jose warned Sousuke that, due to their conditioning, the gunslinger girls might have some patchy spots in their memories, but when Sousuke came to visit Henrietta, he found her alert and smiling, obviously pleased to see him.

She had no memory of her attack on Persephone.

Sitting on the visitor's chair in her hospital room, Sousuke found it hard to believe that this one detail (the most important of all) was the only one she could not recall.

"…so it really was me?" the girl asked, pulling him from his thoughts. "I guess it's good that we won, but I wish I could remember it."

"It's not a problem," Sousuke assured her. "Did Jose give you the details of what happened?"

Henrietta nodded. "Uh huh," she said brightly. "I shot her, but her force field didn't work right, so she got killed."

Sousuke said nothing. It seemed like such a strange thing to lie about—it just didn't make sense. The little girl had killed plenty of people, and while it was admittedly far from his kill total, it was still respectable, even among professionals… so why lie to her about how she killed one enemy?

_Maybe it was the WAY she did it,_ he mused. _She wasn't herself when it happened. Maybe Jose is trying to protect her from more than just a single memory._

He couldn't blame the man for that. It had been so primal—so visceral—he almost wished he hadn't seen it, and he couldn't imagine being told that was the one to tear out someone's throat with his teeth. As for himself, Sousuke had his own suspicions regarding why Henrietta had gone savage without warning, but he kept them to himself, knowing that even if he was right, there was nothing he could to about it.

How do you tell a cyborg that you suspected certain keywords or voices might trigger a killing frenzy in them? And what good would it do to know it, if they could do nothing to stop it?

_Besides, _Sousuke thought. _It's only a theory…_

"Rico is back on duty," Henrietta told him, drawing him out of his thoughts. "She wanted to see you, but Jean said no. Do you know why?"

Sousuke shook his head. "No," he murmured, "I don't."

Secretly, however, he suspected that Jean was a far more jealous man than he let on, and people like that had a hard time letting go of things they considered theirs, even for a few minutes.

"I heard Kurz saw her in the hall, though."

This caught Sousuke's interest, because if Jean was selfish enough to keep Rico from him, there was no chance he would willingly let her run into a man she had actually made a bond with, no matter how tenuous.

"She gave him his bullet back," Henrietta said. "She said Jean told her too, but I think it made her happy."

_Kurz too, knowing him,_ he thought approvingly.

"So is it all over now?"

Sousuke considered this for a moment. "I think so," he allowed. "The Cerberus organization was run by Adam and Eve, and without either one of them they have no driving force, and no creative backing. It's the law of entropy."

Henrietta frowned. "I think I read that in one of my school books," she said uncertainly.

"It goes something like, 'Energy in a closed system is lost over time,'" Sousuke recited. "Basically, since they have no more leaders, they'll just eventually fall apart."

"Oh."

They fell into silence again, their conversation suffering entropy as they both thought of something more to say.

The opening of the door saved them the trouble, as Henrietta's doctor came in. "You're clear, Henrietta," the man said smoothly. "Please be careful out there."

"Yes sir," Henrietta promised, glancing at the little wardrobe where her clothes were for a moment, then back to Sousuke before timidly asking, "C-can… can you wait outside?"

It briefly crossed Sousuke's mind to say that he was a combat professional, and therefore quite familiar with the human body—in all states of dress and undress—but every time he mentioned this, it always seemed to get him slapped, so he simply bowed and went out into the hall.

His timing was perfect, as he nearly ran into Kaname, Tessa, and Mardukas. "Sergeant," Mardukas said. "We were just looking for you. Are you almost fini-"

"Sousuke!"

In a second, Kaname was in his arms.

"I wanted to tell you! I knew exactly what she was planning as soon as Adam died—but she Whispered so hard! I couldn't… we couldn't… I'm so sorry!"

As she continued to babble, slipping almost entirely into techno speak, Tessa stepped forward. "Eve suppressed us," she said quietly. "You can't understand how powerful she was, Sousuke—she _made_ us sleep. She hit us so hard we couldn't stay awake, and then she kept so much pressure on us that we didn't even dream."

With a sense of disquiet, Sousuke noticed that a small corner of Tessa' right eye was no longer gray, but the exact shade of brown as Kaname's. Somehow, he knew that if he looked into Kaname's eyes, he would see a similar shard of gray in them.

"The coffee."

"Hmm?"

"Whispering," Sousuke elaborated. "Kaname told me that you described it like mixing cream into coffee."

"It was milk and tea, but close enough," Kaname said, pulling away and wiping her eyes as if she had never broken into tears at all. "We… we Whispered for a long time, Sousuke. There's no way the milk and the tea could stay completely separate."

Sousuke nodded. _They were acting like each other just now,_ he thought grimly. _How much did they mix?_

"It's easier when we're further apart," Tessa told him suddenly. "I don't know if we'll ever go back to exactly the way things were, but I think, with some time and some distance…"

Kaname finished the thought for her. "We might get close."

Nodding, Sousuke said, "I understand. Then we should be getting back as quickly as we can."

"I'd like a minute of your time before you leave, Sergeant."

_Everyone's here now,_ Sousuke thought as Jose approached them from down the hall, trailed by Hillshire and Triela.

This thought became true as Henrietta emerged from her hospital room, buttoning the last button on her blouse as she spotted her handler. "Jose!" she cried joyously, pushing between Kaname and Sousuke in her hurry to reach him.

"Henrietta," Jose said warmly, rubbing the girl's head as she skidded to a halt in front of him and gazed up with open adoration. "You're looking well."

"Yes sir," Henrietta reported happily. "One hundred percent ready for duty."

Clearing his throat, Mardukas said, "We should be going, Sergeant. If you have business here, please conclude it as quickly as possible. I'm afraid the Captain defied my order to rest and recuperate."

"I understand," Sousuke replied, all too aware of how pale both Tessa and Kaname looked. "What business do you have with me, Agent Jose?"

Nodding, Jose got right to the point.

"I've been asked to offer you a position within our organization, Mister Sagara," he said formally. "With your combat experience, and your… obvious comfort with our cyborgs and agents, our department head feels that you would be an undeniable asset to us."

Sousuke cleared his throat. "I'm honored, Agent Jose, but I doubt my commanding officer would allow…" he trailed off as he spied Tessa shaking her head.

"If you want to stay, you can, Sousuke," she said gently. "You really do work well with them, and it's not like we're enemies or anything. We both do the same thing, in the end."

"I've been asked to inform you that the compensation will not be an issue," Jose added.

"And you'd get to work with Triela," Henrietta helpfully put in. "And… and me."

She blushed as Sousuke stared at her.

"We won't hold you back, Sousuke," Tessa said firmly. "If this is what you want, you're free to go."

After staring at the platinum haired woman for a moment, Sousuke finally whispered, "Is that an order, Captain?"

Tessa's eyes looked damp, but she immediately replied, "No, Sergeant, I'll leave this decision to you." She cleared her throat, glancing surreptitiously at Triela before adding, "I would… prefer it if you stayed with us—I mean, you're a fantastic solider—but if you… really want to go, I'll approve all the paperwork and make sure no one tries to block it."

Sousuke considered this for a moment, glancing at Kaname, who quickly looked away… though not quickly enough to hide the look of panic in her eyes. _She won't ask me to stay either,_ he thought in an uncharacteristic flash of insight. A chill ran through him as the young woman took a lock of her hair and began chewing on it. _She would say she's glad to see me go, but she wouldn't be happy… not really._

After a moment of silence, he slowly shook his head. "Please thank your superior for me, Agent Jose," he said formally, "but I must respectfully decline his offer." He shot a glance at Tessa, quickly looking away as he found her gaping at him with her jaw wide open. "I have… reasons to remain where I am."

Jose looked unsurprised. "I understand," he said. "Perhaps our paths will cross again, Mister Sousuke."

He offered his hand, which Sousuke took. "It was an honor working with you, Agent Jose," Sousuke said honestly.

As soon as he released Jose's hand, Sousuke turned to Henrietta… but before he could stick out his hand and make a fool of himself, the little brunette glanced at Jose, then threw her arms around him and gave him a quick, awkward hug.

"Come visit us, ok?" she asked, stepping back and almost hiding behind her handler as Sousuke stared at her with open shock. "Anytime you want."

"I'd like that," Sousuke said, unsure of how to expound. "The next time I can, I will."

He turned as he felt a light tap on his shoulder, finding himself face to face with a very determined looking gunslinger girl.

"Sousuke."

"Miss Triela."

"Could I have a word with you? In private?"

Sousuke blinked. "Umm, certainly."

Triela gestured to Henrietta's room, and Sousuke followed her in, looking perplexed. Several moments later, Triela emerged, looking immensely satisfied with herself.

"We can go now," she informed Hillshire primly, ignoring his blatant scowl.

As they made their goodbyes, Sousuke reemerged from the room, his expression dazed and mystified.

"What did she need?" Tessa asked, trying (and failing) to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

Sousuke's hand twitched, and for the briefest moment, Tessa was sure he was going to touch his lips. Instead, he simply turned on his heal and walked over to where Kaname was waiting.

"It was nothing, Captain," he said calmly. "Kaname, should we head back?"

"Nothing my ass," Tessa huffed, glaring at where she had last seen Triela. "Little tramp."

"What was that, Captain Testarrossa?"

"Nothing, Mister Mardukas," the platinum haired girl replied, flushing a brilliant shade of red. "Nothing at all."

With nothing left to say, the Mithril agents exchanged handshakes with the Social Welfare Agency's officers, nodding their respect before slowly going their separate ways. As they reached the corner of the hospital corridor, Sousuke took a final look back over his shoulder, meeting Henrietta's eyes as she too stole one last glance.

She smiled, and raised her hand in a little wave.

_We'll meet again,_ Sousuke thought, raising his own hand in reply. _Someday, somehow… we'll meet again…_

Turning away, the two went along their separate paths, certain that they had not seen the last of each other.

The End

Final notes: I started this story a long time ago, but I promised myself I wouldn't release any of it until I had _all_ of it ready to go. I'm trying to do that with all of my stories going forward—that way I'll actually be able to release chapters when I want to rather than pressuring myself to hurry them up.

On the story itself, I started it after a conversation with Stahn about how fitting it would be if the Gunslinger Girls were created using black technology, and it all just grew from there. Originally, chapter 3 was the intended ending… but after it was over, I realized that I still had a whole bunch of story that wanted to be told, and the rest just started spilling out.

I hope, after all of my rambling, that I've managed to entertain you for a few minutes. If so, I thank you for taking the time to read. If not, I apologize for wasting your time.

Pre-read on this chapter, as on all of them, was courtesy of Stahn Aileron and Alpha Zulu., without whom this story would never have been completed, and certainly wouldn't have been completed with even _half_ the quality it currently retains. Thanks to both of you for keeping me on the right track.

-Random


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